


My Pereche

by ggf83



Series: Pereche Series [1]
Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Lemon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-23 03:19:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 59,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ggf83/pseuds/ggf83
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since the days when the Romanian Coven ruled the vampire world, Sufletul Pereche was a common vampire myth -- a vampire fairy tale.<br/>When Jasper's own Pereche moves to Forks, he is torn. He already has a mate he loves, but how can you stay away from the other half of your soul?<br/>How can he give up Alice to be with Bella, and how can he protect Bella from his brother who thirsts for her blood?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> No copyright infringment intended. All rights to Twilight and recognizable characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.
> 
> Thanks to Project Team Beta for whipping me into shape. On the very slim chance that you've seen this fic before, yes, it was posted last year on FFN.
> 
> Rating is really only for one lemony scene at the end.

  
  


**_Alice_ **

As soon as Carlisle made the decision to return to Forks, the visions began to bombard me, the force of them bringing me to my knees.

“Alice, honey?” Jasper cooed, rubbing my back. “Are you okay?”

Edward was looking at me with a confused expression. Like me, he couldn’t keep up with the ferocity of the scenes. He was just as confused as I was.

“I’m going hunting. I’ll be back soon,” I told my family, kissing Jasper on the cheek quickly before racing out into the forest. He tried to protest, saying that he wanted to come with me, but I waved him off. He couldn’t be around me.

Once I was out of Edward’s range, I sank to the forest floor and let the visions repeat over and over in my mind. It took almost an hour before the painful images began to make sense. My head fell into my hands in despair when I realized just what was going to happen. If there were ever a time that tears were needed, now was it, but of course they never appeared.

The images desisted eventually, and I started searching my own future. I desperately needed to see something positive. Sobbing tearlessly, I curled into a ball, absorbing what I had seen.

When I returned to the house late the next afternoon, Jasper was pacing impatiently, creating a worn path across the yard. Esme’s poor Daphne’s hadn’t survived his fretting. He stopped the second I stepped through the treeline and locked his gaze on mine. We never did need to speak many words between us.

I halted directly before him, and he cupped my cheeks in his hands, sending me his concern, his eyes full of questions. I smiled sadly up at him and covered his hands with my own.

“I love you, Jasper, and I always will,” I whispered, my voice hitching in a completely human way. He silently let me feel his love for me, which broke my heart even more. “When it happens, though, just remember that I have no regrets. There’s nothing I would change. And” -- I breathed deeply, calming myself – “I’llbe here for you. I’ll support you fully, no matter how hard it is.”

He breathed in my scent, centering himself. “What’s happening, sweetheart? Tell me, and we can find a way to change it.”

“No.” I sighed. “This is the way it should be. I’ll be okay eventually.”

He opened his mouth to protest, and I cut him off with the most passionate kiss I could muster. It hurt me to pull away.

“It’s okay,” I reminded him. “When it happens, you don’t need to fight it. It’s inevitable.”

I grasped his hand tightly, pulling him toward our room. I was going to make the most of the time I had left.

  
  


  
  


**_Two years later_ **

  
  


**_Jasper_ **

I didn’t pay attention to it all morning. When you’d been to as many high schools as we had, a new kid just didn’t register on the radar. Sure, I felt the excitement rippling through the school, but it didn’t really mean anything. One human was just like the next. As much as my conscious mind tried to debate it, my subconscious saw them purely as food. They were weak and insignificant; why should I pay attention to a new face in the swarm?

As we collected our prop food, or what apparently counted as food to humans, I could hear Jessica Stanley telling the new girl about our family. Her words spoke of how conceited and superior we apparently were, but her emotions were jealousyand slight awe. I couldn’t help my lips from twitching in mirth at how she tried to act like she didn’t care about us at all.

We seated ourselves at the table we always did, but Alice and Edward seemed to linger slightly before sitting, having one of their frustrating internal conversations. Alice would think something to Edward, and then Edward would just have to decide what his answer was for Alice to see it. They didn’t do it often, because it took twice as long as a normal conversation, so I automatically knew that it had to be something that they didn’t want the rest of the family to know. When Edward nodded at her, the seeming end to their “talk,” I turned to my mate, waiting for her to sit so I could shuffle closer to her. For some reason, I felt the need to be close to her for just a minute.

Instead of sitting next to me, however, she stepped behind, allowing Edward to take her usual place. Her tiny hand gripped my shoulder, just for a second, and she squeezed slightly. She was filled with resignation which confused and panicked me. I looked up at her in question, but she just smiled sadly. It was that same haunted look that had filled her so many times recently -- even last night as we had been making love.

I took a leaf out of Edward’s book and decided to ask her if I’d done something wrong. Her eyelids fluttered ever so slightly, as they always did when she received a fleeting vision, seeing my decision. Her lips pursed slightly, but she shook her head at me, smiling sadly again as she took Edward’s normal spot across the table.

A group of freshmen came stumbling into the cafeteria, laughing to each other at the expense of some fellow student, and the door took four seconds longer than normal to fall closed, being caught by a sudden gust of wind. That breeze floated through the crowded room, frustrating Rosalie when it blew her hair into her face, getting some strands caught in the sticky lip-gloss she was wearing.

Our whole table instinctively took in a breath. It was a reflex I had noticed vampires possessed – the wind blows in your face, you breathe in. My theory was that it forced you to scent the new air for potential threats. The second the air flowed through my nose, everything stopped. Something changed, and I didn’t know if it was just me or if something had affected us all. My chest was aching all of a sudden, and I had absolutely no idea why. It was the sweetest, most satisfying scent I had ever come across, yet I didn’t feel any urge to attack the source.

Contrastingly, I could feel Edward’s bloodlust spike out of control. “Mine,” he growled lowly, thankfully keeping it in check enough so not to let the humans hear him.

I knew that he was a threat and we should get him out of there. He needed to hunt - as far away from here as possible. We couldn’t have him slaughtering the whole school. But for some reason, I couldn’t move. All my body knew was that I had to find that scent. My eyes flicked to the new girl. That had to be where it was coming from. Once I laid eyes on her properly for the first time, not the cursory glance I’d given her earlier, I couldn’t pull away. She was… everything, and I had no idea why. I took in every detail of her, from her thick brown hair that lay in waves across her shoulders, down to the way the edge of the table pressed into her pliable stomach, pushing the blue blouse hiding beneath her open winter coat slightly askew. I took in each curve and pore of her face, ending at wide eyes, the color of the fur right near the jugular of a brown bear.

She had been looking in fear at Edward’s contorted expression behind me, but slowly her gaze moved to connect with mine. I was at once torn between keeping her gaze and standing to move closer to her.

The seconds were both an eternity and not long enough. All that I knew was that I had never felt anything like that before. What I felt for Alice, though it was real and consumed my whole world, was tiny compared to my need to be near the human girl. A girl whose name I hadn’t even bothered to learn. Most disturbing was that I didn’t know why I felt this way.

I was assaulted by her confusion, the emotions of the rest of the room becoming whispers in the background. From what I could work out, she was confused about the way in which I was concentrating on her. Her secondary emotions vacillated, though were mostly centered around inferiority. Why couldn’t she see how perfect she was?

Her gaze flickered back toward Edward, who was struggling against Emmett’s grasp. He frightened her - his reaction was completely unwarranted for a supposed simple high school student. That speck of fear was what forced me into action. She needed me to remove the threat to her wellbeing. That, I could do.

I whirled on my brother, almost forgetting to limit my speed to be somewhat human, a warning growl echoing in my chest. He growled lowly back at me, a battle of wills. Between Emmett and me, we quickly removed him from the building.

“Breathe,” I commanded him once we were out of the building and her scent was no longer around us. The scent that I was already missing.

Edward’s refreshing breathing brought him back to us slightly, and the monster receded enough that we could reason with him.

I turned to Emmett and Rosalie, making sure Rosalie had a firm grip of Edward before I took my hands away. “Get him away from here. Make him hunt. I’ll stay as the last defense in case he escapes from you and attempts to return.”

They nodded tersely, checked that nobody was watching, and flashed past the tree line.

“Mine!” Edward growled again, louder than before, as he was forced away from the meal he so desperately wanted.

The immediate threat gone, my legs failed me, and my body crashed to the ground in relief. “No, mine,” I said softly, not even sure what it meant.

Alice looked down on me sadly.

“What the hell was that?” I demanded, more harshly than I had ever spoken to my mate.

“Bella is Edward’s singer,” she explained softly. She had a name… Bella. My mind repeated it over and over.

“I worked that out,” I replied distractedly, fighting the urge to return to the cafeteria. “What happened to me?”

Alice slid her body gracefully down the side of the building so she was sitting next to me. “You want me to tell you? Or let you work it out yourself?”

“Tell me, dammit!”

She looked down at her fingers, touching the light pink nail polish she had applied the day before.

“ _Sufletul pereche_.”

My head snapped up. “That’s just a rumor. A vampire fairy tale. They don’t exist.”

“It’s very rare, sure, but they do exist. I mean, if there is truly only one person in existence who is your true soul mate, what are the chances that you’ll be in existence at the same time, and in the same place? It’s just so rare because the probability of ever finding your _pereche_ is so low.”

I glanced over toward the cafeteria, wondering whether Alice could be right. “But… _you_ are my mate.”

She shrugged lightly. “Pereche trumps mate. Always will. You can’t fight this, Jasper. Trust me; I’ve tried my hardest to find a way, and it never worked.”

Realization hit me. “That’s why you’ve been so resigned and desperate the last couple of years. You knew this was coming.”

She nodded, snuggling against my body and inhaling my scent. This whole situation must be unfathomably hard for her – she was losing her mate. Logically, I knew it would happen, no matter how much I didn’t want to give Alice up.

“I love you, Alice,” I whispered, nuzzling her hair.

She sighed. “I love you, too, so much. But you need her. I’m not your future.”

“I want you to be, though,” I told her, strain evident in my voice. I couldn’t imagine life without Alice by my side. But… would that be fair? To make her watch me around my pereche?

“I’ll still be here, Jazz,” she said softly. “You’re still the most important thing in _my_ world, even if it’s not going to be reciprocated for very much longer. Even if we can’t be together anymore, you’re still my best friend. I won’t leave you unless it’s what you want. Or probably more likely…if it’s what Bella wants.”

My body protested. “I don’t care who she is to me, she can’t make me give you up.” Even as I said it, something in me knew it wasn’t true.

Alice just petted my knee and sent me a combination of regret, love, and understanding.

“Okay, so say I accept that she’s my pereche. Why did she not feel the same for me?”

“She’s human. She doesn’t have the capacity to feel it. She feels a connection, but doesn’t know what it is.” She paused, her emotions part apprehension, part mirth. “You’re going to have to court her – she’s not going to just fall at your feet like I did. It will be difficult.”

I pulled away slightly to frown at her.

Her eyes fluttered slightly, and then she giggled.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She smiled. “I take back the comment about her not falling at your feet, though.”

I looked at her in confusion.

“Don’t worry. You’ll see soon enough.”

I tried to work out what she meant by that.

“There’s something in your favor, though,” she said, smiling softly.

My eyebrows rose, trying to prompt her to reveal what she knew.

“Most people don’t have the assistance of their wife in wooing their new love.”

I chuckled and pulled her back against my side.

  
  



	2. Chapter Two

 

 

Alice’s eyes fluttered, and I looked at her curiously, stroking her shoulder as she shook herself out of the vision. “They’re not coming back to school today,” she told me. “They’re taking Edward home.”

I felt my muscles relax, allowing me to come down from a state of heightened alertness I hadn’t even realized I was embodying.

“Come on,” she urged, rising to her feet with an ease only a vampire could attain. “Let’s go back inside. I know you want to.”

I sent her a pained look. I couldn’t stand the idea of hurting this woman who I had spent a third of my long life alongside. The woman who found me as a broken empty shell of a man and nursed me back to this calm and content being, free of the pain and ravages of my violent existence. Alice fixed me. Alice was my life.

_Well, maybe not anymore,_ I lamented internally.

I grabbed at her hand desperately, needing the feel of her temperate skin against mine to ground me somehow. She gripped me tightly, her eyes closing and shuddering imperceptibly for just a second. I wouldn’t have noticed it if it wasn’t for the quick surge of desperation and panic that flickered out of her. She quickly got herself under control, replacing her fear with steely determination.

She stopped just in front of the cafeteria door and looked at me, oozing understanding. Alice dropped my hand pointedly.

“She doesn’t need to know about the nature of our relationship right now,” she said softly.

I nodded slowly, turning my head to look through the glass, where I could both see and feel Bella. It was distracting, which was a very unusual sensation for a vampire with unlimited brain capacity to feel.

This distraction was likely the reason why it took a few seconds for realization to set in.

“You’ve been doing that the entire time we’ve been in Forks, haven’t you?” I gasped. As my mind flickered back over our time here, I knew it was true – Alice had always been very careful to not let anyone at the school know that we were a couple, keeping the affection to times we were alone.

“People talk.” She shrugged. “It’s better if she thinks we’re just siblings in the beginning, anyway.”

I sent her a burst of love and appreciation, which she accepted with a nod and a smile.  

“Remember not to come on too strong,” she murmured as we returned to our hastily abandoned table still littered with trays, abandoned human food, and Rosalie’s physics book. My military training came in handy sometimes. My natural inclination to situate myself where I could see the whole room meant that I was facing directly at her. My body trembled without my consent. The pull wasn’t as strong as it was outside; my nerve endings seemed to recognize that I was at least in the same room as her.

She hadn’t moved from her previous position; her food was untouched since I last saw her. She didn’t seem to be paying attention to the conversation going on around her; she was distracted for some reason.

Carefully focusing in on her mental essence, I took in her emotions. Curiosity, confusion, and… slight disappointment? I wondered what caused that.

I hadn’t even realized I’d done it until her faced crinkled in confusion, and I realized I had sent her a wave of awe and adoration.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I cursed at vampire volume. Alice, realizing what I had done, chuckled behind her hands across the table. Glaring light-heartedly at her, I quickly eliminated her mirth and replaced it with remorse.

My eyes still trained on Bella, I saw as her head slowly lifted and she looked around, trying to ascertain why her feelings had suddenly changed. She didn’t look around the room the way I expected her to. Instead, like they were magnets, her eyes were drawn immediately to mine. As I heard her heartbeat stutter from across the room, relief and happiness filled her when she noticed me sitting there. I couldn’t help the way my face lit up.

I could feel a smile pulling at my mouth, when Alice hissed across the table. “Keep your teeth hidden.”

Heeding her advice, I kept my lips tightly closed as I smiled at her. Her heartbeat stuttered again, and a bright red blush rose against her skin as she ducked her head in embarrassment. Her blush was beautiful. The way the blood rose to the surface of her skin was…

_Wait a second,_ I demanded of myself. _Her blood…._

“What the hell am I doing?” I hissed at Alice. “She’s human!”

My wife chuckled and I pulled my gaze away from Bella to glare at her. “Is this really only just now occurring to you?”

I watched as Bella peered at me from around the curtain of her hair. “Well… yes.” Everything had been thrust upon me in such a short a time. I hadn’t really had time to process what my mate being human would mean.

“I can’t be close to a human.” My body protested, shaking slightly at the thought of hurting her. “What if I kill her?”

“You won’t,” Alice reassured me. “Not accidentally, anyway.”

My eyes swung to hers, slightly too fast for a human. Luckily nobody but Bella was paying attention to us, and she was too far away to notice the movement. “You mean--?”

She nodded, just as the bell rang. Frowning, my glance flicked between Alice and Bella, trying to work out if this was a good thing or not and why Bella would agree to be changed.

I opened my mouth to ask, but Alice turned to me as we exited the cafeteria. “Because when you love someone like that, you want to spend eternity with them,” she whispered too low for any of the humans to hear.

 

* * *

 

 

I was antsy all through English class after Alice informed me that I would have History with Bella the following hour. I rolled my eyes at myself - I was beginning to have way too many human responses regarding this girl. I could barely contain myself as I rushed to class.

“What on earth is wrong with me?” I muttered as I took a seat at the back of the class. It was both an eternity and a micro-second before the reason for my new-found insanity walked through the door nervously, glancing between the classroom number on the door and the piece of paper in her hand obsessively.

By the time she had spoken to the teacher and received her textbook, there were only two vacant seats – one at the very front and center of the class, where all eyes would be on her, and the other next to me. If I were Alice, I believe I would have been doing what she referred to as a ‘happy dance’.

She hesitated slightly at the front desk, flicking her eyes around the room. Relief flooded her when she saw the second empty seat, only to be replaced with a flustered feeling when she saw I was sitting there watching her. Her eyes were on the floor and that gorgeous blush covered her skin as she took her seat, glancing at me a few times.

My attention was focused on her, my skin electric from her proximity. I sat on my hands, not bothering to take notes – it wasn’t like I needed them – to try and remove the temptation to reach out across the small gap to touch her. Even while sitting on them, I could feel my fingers twitching towards her. Apparently meeting your _pereche_ translated to losing control of both your mind and body.

If I had been human, and not able to take in hundreds of details at once without concentrating on them, I would have missed what Mr. Randall was talking about. As it was, it took the chairs of those around me moving before I reacted to his demand that we pair off to discuss the upcoming research project.

As children all around the room began moving together, I turned my body towards Bella, which made every cell in my body cheer. She was biting her lip nervously, and not making eye contact with anyone. She obviously wasn’t going to volunteer to partner up with anyone. I could see that weasely Newton kid building up the courage to ask her, and knew I couldn’t dally any longer. Grabbing my chair, I scooted it across the aisle next to her.

“May I?” I indicated between the two of us. Surprise and a bit of elation ran through her.

“Uh… S-s-sure.” She looked up at me through her eyelashes. I don’t think she realized just how enticing that action was.

“Jasper.” She looked at me, confused. “My name is Jasper,” I amended, and a slight blush colored her cheeks.

“Bella.” She extended her hand out to me formally.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I smiled, and took her outstretched hand. Instead of shaking it as she expected – something that only men did back in my day – I enclosed her tiny fingers within both my hands.

I'd heard of _sufletul_ _pereche_ during my years, but I wasn’t ready to experience it in person. The touch of her skin made my body feel like it was on fire. Every nerve ending burned. But it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation at all – not like the change. It was warmth and love and…. completion. I was a moron for thinking these things, but no other explanation came to mind. I would be happy to never leave this spot again, which scared me. This pull was so intense, how would I manage to leave her side? How would I ever convince myself that being away from her was necessary for any reason? How would I ever survive without her?

I knew she could feel something too. Her fingers twitched against my skin, her blush intensified, her heart pounded, and excitement ran through her. As she pulled her hand away, she was filled with regret and disappointment. I normally didn’t like over-using my gift, but without even thinking about it, I replaced her emotions with contentment. She relaxed a bit, causing her knee to move tantalizingly close to my own.

“I guess we should choose a topic then,” I suggested, gesturing towards the whiteboard. “There’s a heap of ‘em to choose from.”

“Um...” She hesitated, and seemed to be considering our options. “How about 'John Bell Hood'?” Her voice was hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure of my reaction.

I smiled and forced back the laugh threatening from the back of my throat. This really was a girl after my own heart. Of all the ‘great’ men written on that list (although I would argue why those damn Yankee Aggressors shouldn’t be on the list), she chose the one Texan. I’d never met the man myself, but I definitely had heard tell of his successes. My only trouble would be finding actual source material, and not just writing what I had heard around the campfires on the battlefield.

“That’ll be perfect,” I said with a grin. Only at the last millisecond did I remember Alice’s advice from earlier and covered my teeth with my lips.

I barely followed our brainstorming session, instead wondering when I could touch her delicate skin once more. It was so fragile and translucent and soft, and it called to me like blood.

I did learn that while she was born here in Forks, she had spent most of her life being moved from place to place by her mother, mostly throughout the South. That, combined with the fact that most of these kids would choose Yankees to study, is what made her decision on research topic.

“I was born in Texas,” I admitted softly. I wasn’t sure if this was really part of the story Alice had weaved over the student body regarding our backgrounds, but I figured Bella would find out everything about me sometime.

She looked at me in surprise. “Really? You don’t have an accent.”

I chose my words carefully. “I was adopted a long time ago, and have been in the North ever since.” I smirked at her. “I can turn it on if you like, though, ma’am,” I added in my thickest Texas drawl.

Her giggle rang out above the hub-bub of the classroom, making my unneeded breath catch.

“I guess we should meet after school sometime,” she mused as she packed up her books at the end of the hour.

I almost wanted to kiss Mr. Randall for giving me such a perfect opportunity. “For sure,” I nodded. I quickly ran through my options. She really shouldn’t be exposed to my family, so our house was out. “I could come to your house tomorrow after school? I’ll pick up the books we’ll need beforehand.” No need to tell her that I would be getting them from my own house, and not from the library.

She bit on her much-abused, bright red lip. “That sounds good,” she said quietly. “I… I’ll see you tomorrow Jasper.”

As she gathered her backpack, I offered her my hand to help her stand, reveling in that incredible warmth and prickling which hadn’t changed since our first touch. She accepted it, slightly embarrassed by what I was raised to think of as simple good manners, and gave me a last glance before moving away.

I took in the deepest breath I could, hoping to take her intoxicating scent with me until I could see her again. The smell thrilled me, and almost distracted me from the tugging in my gut, which was increasing with every step she took from me.

 


	3. Chapter Three

 

“How was it?” Alice was practically vibrating with excitement as I approached the car.

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Really? Don’t pretend you weren’t watching.”

She pouted as she slid into the passenger side. “Well, sure, I saw what actually happened, but I want to know what you thought, and felt and….”

I waved her off with a flick of my hand. “Yeah, yeah, I get it.” I slowly pulled into the line of cars waiting to turn out of the parking lot.

I stayed silent until we reached the quiet highway that led to our house. Knowing we were now out of view of anyone from school, I slid my hand across the center console to thread my fingers through hers. She relaxed at my touch. As much as I enjoyed this feeling, I couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to be holding Bella's hand like this.

"Is there a word that's better than 'wonderful'?" I asked her, smiling softly.

She smirked at me. "That good, huh? What does it feel like?"

"I just... it felt right to be sitting next to her. It was like this tether that had been holding us together wasn't stretched so tightly, and the tension was released." I shrugged. "It's hard to explain."

"From what I've seen, she seems like a truly good person, very sweet and genuine."

"So I'm not going to be eternally connected to some ornery shrew, then?"

"Definitely not," she laughed, and the sound eased my mind. Alice truly was a nice gal. She was handling this situation much better than most people would. Hells bells, I think if the situation had been reversed, I would be having some sort of breakdown.

"Jazz?"

"Hmm?"

"Would it be okay if I met her tomorrow? I don't have to if you'd prefer I didn't. Just.... I've seen us being friends for so long, and I'm starting to get rather impatient." She was rambling.

"Sure, honey." It felt so unusual for her to be asking my permission to forge a friendship. As much as I told myself I was the man in our relationship, she didn't often hold herself back from just “doing'” without asking my opinion. She really was much more suited to this century, where women were free and could make their own decisions. This new, hesitant Alice was somewhat disconcerting. "You don't have to ask my permission."

She was chewing nervously on her bottom lip. She really had been around humans too much. "I kind of do, though," she said softly, nervousness seeping from her. "With how important Bella is to you, it wouldn't be out of order for you to not want her to be surrounded by vampires – especially a vampire who is struggling somewhat with the idea of losing her husband to her."

I couldn't deny that I was taken aback by her admission. All afternoon, Alice had been so strong for me. Without her there to hold me up, I would have been an emotional wreck, which was saying a lot for me.

I turned into the long driveway, and looked at her seriously. "I trust you," I told her earnestly, making sure she could feel my sincerity. "Them up there?" I gestured towards the house. "Not so much. But I trust you with my life. And apparently, now she is my life..."

"Thanks Jazz. I won't hurt her. In any way."

I nodded my understanding as I pulled into the garage. I could feel Esme and Rosalie's presences inside the house.

"Emmett's still with Edward," Alice explained as we exited the vehicle. "How's the chest pain?"

I looked at her in surprise. “When did you become an empath?”

“Oh, how quickly you forget that I’m practically omnipotentt,” she smirked. Her ego really knew no bounds sometimes.

I rolled my eyes at her, and rubbed at my chest absently. “It’s… okay. The pull is stronger out here, almost to the point of pain like you say, but it’s bearable.”

As the thought flitted through my head that the night would be horrible if I stayed this far out of town, Alice's eyes flickered blank for a second. She looked at me with understanding, and took my hand to lead me inside. As we stepped across the threshold, I could hear the distinctive soft purr of Carlisle's Mercedes approaching on the highway.

"Jasper," Esme breathed, rushing to me. She hesitated before embracing me; I had never been overtly physically demonstrative with my adoptive family. I gave her a quick nod to let her know it was okay , and she eagerly wrapped her arms around me. "Rosalie said she thought something was wrong with you; that you were inadvertently projecting something and didn't notice immediately that Edward had lost it. Are you okay, sweetheart?"

Over Esme's shoulder, I glanced first at Alice and then at my “sister”. Rosalie was filled with concern; people really did underestimate her ability to care for others.

"I'm fine," I reassured her, letting her feel my honesty. "In fact, I'm great."

Rosalie was curious -- my word choice was probably not at all what she was expecting -- and getting rather impatient for answers.

"We should all sit down," Alice suggested, moving into the living room. By now everyone was aware that Carlisle was very close to the house, so nobody pushed for me to explain myself until he arrived.

Alice was loitering awkwardly near the couch, unsure where she should sit. Cringing inwardly at her circumstance, I took her hand as I passed by her and led her to the armchair. I took a seat and allowed her to sit on the floor between my legs where I could play with her hair. One of her hands automatically wound its way around my leg, which helped to ground me and reassure me of her unwavering support.

Carlisle gave us questioning looks when he arrived home, obviously only having heard about Edward's slip, but silently took a seat next to his wife, waiting for any new information.

I wasn't sure what to say, or even how to start. What I was about to tell them was going to affect their lives greatly, especially if Bella was going to be a part of our family.

"I'll explain," Alice said softly to me, and I let her feel my gratitude. I squeezed her shoulder gently as she began to speak.

"Today was a much more significant day for us than just Edward encountering his singer," she stated.

"His singer?" Carlisle questioned, his eyebrows raised, and Alice nodded. "And he didn't harm the human?"

"He would never have made it past me," I muttered, trying desperately to quell the rage that surged through me at the thought of him attacking Bella. Rosalie looked at me in confusion and began to open her mouth to speak, but she closed it quickly again. She obviously wanted to reiterate that when Edward was becoming consumed by bloodlust, I didn't make a move to restrain him.

"Her name is Bella," Alice continued, and I felt myself relax considerably at the mere sound of her name. Alice must have felt this, as she became amused when the tension left the leg she was gripping. "She is the daughter of Chief Swan. And nothing can happen to her. There must be no mistakes, and Edward needs to be kept far away from her. Having a slip is just not an option with her." I could feel myself nodding vigorously at her commands. "She is Jasper's _sufletul pereche_." The three not already in the know all gasped loudly.

"Is this really true, Jasper?" Carlisle questioned, standing. He had a very human trait of pacing the room when he was trying to work things out in his head.

"Yes, sir."

As I looked at him, I could see both Esme and Rosalie's eyes flicking between Alice and myself. Their first thoughts at hearing the news seemed to be going along similar lines as my own had. I let my fingers caress Alice’s neck and shoulder lovingly.

"What does this mean?" Carlisle asked.

"Well, first of all, it means that I won't hesitate to rip Edward to pieces if he tries to attack her..." I looked him dead in the eyes as I said this to ensure he knew I was serious. Being his first “child”, Carlisle had a soft spot for the boy, and would protect him almost as passionately as he would Esme. He needed to know that there would be no second chances if one hair on Bella's head was touched. Our eyes locked, almost in a stare-down, before he lowered his in submission. He felt resigned, knowing that my threats were real and legitimate.

"Don't get me wrong," I said softly. "I don't _want_ to hurt him. I really do see him as my brother. But he is a huge threat toward my _pereche_ , and if I feel neutralization is the necessary course, I won't hesitate."

Carlisle nodded his understanding. He seemed to understand that my connection to Bella was out of my hands, and there was no use fighting it.

The seriousness of what we were facing as a family seemed to sink in around the room. Esme was filled with worry, betraying the calm facade she was trying to hold on to as she watched her mate pace the room silently. Rosalie didn't bother, as she never did, hiding her emotions. She was confused, even more so when I leaned over and kissed the top of Alice's head. The look she sent me was bordering on a glare, and I could tell that she was wondering how my bond with Alice was still so strong.

"Carlisle," I began, and he stopped his pacing. "You've studied with the Volturi. Can you tell us anything about the phenomenon and what will happen to me?"

Alice chimed in. "All I could tell from my vision was what she was to him. The rest was fairly innocuous, everyday stuff."

Carlisle nodded slowly and perched himself on the arm of the chair next to Esme. "Some of the Volturi's learnings on the topic are just retold from Romanian defectors. There have only been a few instances that the brothers have seen for themselves. But I can probably fill in a few of the gaps in your knowledge."

I nodded at him to go on, subconsciously rubbing at my chest, which was becoming slightly more painful.

"The theory is that for any one being, there are probably thousands of potential mates for them out in the world. It is once we meet one of these thousands that the mating bond occurs, and as you know, it is pretty much unbreakable. As callous as it sounds, yes, you have more than one 'perfect match', and it just depends which one you come across first as to who becomes your mate."

It was an interesting concept. I had always thought of mates as being the “one true love”, but he was right -- if there was really only one match out there, then most vampires wouldn't find them. The world was just too vast to meet everyone.

"A _sufletul pereche_ isn't just your perfect match – they truly are your other half. Your soul mate, as the name’s origin suggests. The ancient Greeks believed that people were created with four arms, four legs, and two faces. We are then split apart and forced to walk the earth without the other half of ourselves. Only the lucky few will ever be reunited with what is essentially their other-worldly Siamese twin. Like I'm sure is common, Jasper, you and your _pereche_ were not born into the same time period. So you are doubly lucky – if you hadn't been turned, you never would have had the chance to experience what I understand is the fulfillment of becoming one entity again. Metaphorically, of course."

I ran my hands up and down my wife's arms, bracing myself for my next question. "What happens to Alice?" I asked softly.

Carlisle tapped his chin in thought. "That is something I myself would be very interested to know. Not that I want to treat you as a research study, you understand. Am I correct in my understanding that your visions have shown a future where Jasper is with Bella, not you?" He looked at her, questioning, with a hint of sympathy in his eyes.

She nodded. "It seems fairly concrete. So far, no decisions have been made that have changed it even slightly. And no, I can't see anything that happens to me, just that I'm around them."

"And Bella will be changed?"

"About an 80% probability. That wavers somewhat, but right now it is the course she is on."

I could see his mind whirring, and I thought about everything I knew about mating. A thought occurred to me in that moment. "While the _pereche_ bond is already there, a true mating bond can only happen between two vampires," I mused out loud. "So theoretically, the bond won't be confirmed until Bella is changed. That could be why I still feel the same regarding Alice. We'll still be joined until the bond is broken by Bella's change." I could feel Alice's sorrow at the prospect of that day arriving. And I couldn't pretend I didn't feel some of the same.

I could feel her body tense and knew that her eyes would be fluttering with a vision. When she slumped slightly, I knew it was over.

"Don't tell Bella that," she whispered, turning on her knees to look at me. "She's very selfless and is willing to not go through with the change so that I can keep you. But.... everyone is happier long-term if it happens."

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Even you?”

Alice pursed her lips in thought. “Maybe not happier than a few years ago before I knew this was happening. But it’s already started, Jasper. I already know that you belong with her. Fighting for you isn’t going to make things better. I don’t know exactly what my future holds right now, but I do know that things will get easier.”

We lapsed into silence, and it was Esme who made us remember just what we had to deal with. "What do we do about Edward? If she truly is his singer...."

I looked at Carlisle and shrugged. I had no idea how to approach the Edward problem.

"I'll admit," Carlisle sighed, "I'm in something of a quandary. You are both my sons, and I can't just choose between you. And I can't just send him away."

"I wouldn't want you to have to do that, either," I pointed out, well aware of the anxiety coming from everyone in the room at the suggestion.

"I'll talk to him. Maybe suggest he spends some time in Denali until things settle down. But you have to know that can't be a long-term solution."

I nodded my understanding. "Now, as much as I'd like to stay here and make small talk, I need to be closer to Bella before my chest explodes."

Chuckling, Alice rose gracefully and took my hand. "I'll come with you. Make sure you don't do something creepy like climbing in her bedroom window." She smirked at me.

I didn't release her hand as we stepped off the porch and began a slow run back towards town.

"Are you going to be okay?" I let her feel some of my anxiety, hoping she understood just how much I wanted her to be happy.

"I will be." She squeezed my hand. "And when the day comes that you no longer love me, I'll be ready for it."

"Hey. Even if you're not my mate, I'll still love you in some way. I promise it."

We came to an abrupt stop just before the trees came to an end. I could smell her from here, and my body tingled at the scent. She was here. This tiny run down house was her home. And finally, I could breathe again.

 


	4. Chapter Four

 

 

When the sun began to peek over the horizon, I knew we needed to leave, but my body was protesting.

"Jazz, come on," Alice urged as I stayed rooted to the ground beneath the tree I had spent the night sitting in.

"But...."

I felt her frustration and amusement. "You do realize that if you're late for school and get detention, you won't be able to study with her after school."

Without further need for encouragement, I took one last look at the small window we had worked out was her bedroom and began the run home.

It had been a relatively successful night. Alice and I had sat in adjacent trees, firstly listening to Bella's awkward conversation with her father over dinner, then the sounds of her night-time activities before lapsing into conversation. She expanded on the details of the visions she'd been having of Bella over the past two years, which gave me insight into the girl she was as opposed to the simple pulling “presence” my mind saw her as at the moment.

Grabbing a backpack as I made my way to my bookcase, I ensured that I had all the books we would need for our history project. I cursed that schools nowadays were such sticklers about referencing your information, so I couldn't just write what I knew from second-hand, fireside accounts.

I stepped out onto the front porch and froze at what was in front of me. "He's going to kill you, you know?" I told Emmett. "And not humanely. One piece at a time, so you can feel every lick of the flames."

"Huh," he scoffed. "I'd like to see him try. And this is the only car we all fit in comfortably." He gestured towards Edward's Volvo, which he was preparing to drive to school.

"Fine. But when he finds out, I want this image to be the first thing he sees in your heads, please: We can't take this. We don't have Edward's permission." I tried to make my protest at least look convincing for the inevitable time when he saw this encounter in our heads.

Sitting in the passenger seat—the girls fit into the back much easier than I did—I was practically vibrating with excitement.

"Oh, dude, you're like a little kid waiting for Santa over there. Chill."

I sent a vicious glare at my brother who was speeding towards the school. Toward Bella.

"Seriously. You only just left her, didn't ya?"

"But I could only feel and smell her. I need to see her."

"God, you've got it bad." I assumed that Emmett had been filled in on the details once he returned back from depositing Edward into the care of the Denalis. They would have met him somewhere near the Alaskan border to make the trip faster for him.

I just shrugged at him. I wasn't about to deny that I “had it bad” as Emmett described. It was fairly given that I was rather obsessed with Bella.

"Okay, Romeo," Rosalie growled, but there wasn't any malice in her essence. "We're almost there. Can you quit the vibrating now?"

I looked down to see my leg shaking nervously. "Oh. Sorry."

She was already here at school, I could tell—the pulling didn't get worse as we passed her street and continued lessening infinitesimally as we drove. I couldn't help grinning as we pulled into the parking lot. The truck, which had been sitting in her driveway all night, was here—as much as the hunk of junk could be classified as a vehicle. Even better; the girl herself was standing on the lawn between the parking lot and D Block.

She was beautiful. Her long hair was blowing in the breeze, and it was obviously annoying her, as she kept brushing it off her face, a burst of impatience pulsing through her each time. Her jeans hugged her body, showing off the curve of her hips from below the hem of her thick coat. She was relaxed as she talked to Angela Weber, shifting her weight between each foot periodically. A few of the boys around were glancing at her with lust; the fact angered me so much I had to keep myself in check to stop from projecting.

I was out of the car almost before Emmett had come to a stop, and I could hear Alice's low chuckling as I moved across the lot towards her. I was halfway when she glanced up over Angela's shoulder and saw me. If I had a functioning heart, it would have been pounding when her face burst into a wide grin. She quickly attempted to neutralize her expression, but I had seen and felt how happy she was when she saw me, and a faint blush and quirk in the side of her mouth betrayed her emotions, even if I hadn't been able to feel them myself.

I felt my feet continue toward her even without my conscious permission, and before I could plan what to say to her, I was standing behind Angela, my eyes locked on her face.

"Quit staring, Jazz. You'll freak her out," Alice hissed from across the lot at vampire frequency.

I tried to take her advice and schooled my face to a less intense expression, forcing my eyes to wander and hoping it looked human.

"Hey, Jasper," she smiled, alerting Angela to my presence, who turned around to face me.

"Hello, Bella. Angela."

Angela registered shock and a little apprehension. I guessed that I'd never really spoken to her before, and she was taken aback.

My skin was tingling, aching to reach out and touch her, but I bit back the urge.

Angela looked between the two of us. "Um.... well, I'll see you in class, Bella." She raised her eyebrows, asking for confirmation.

"Sure, Ang."

"How are you?" I asked as Angela walked away, instantly mentally kicking myself for the trite small talk.

"I'm good." She was filled with amusement.

"I... I was wondering if you would like to sit together at lunch today." I couldn't believe how nervous I was. I could hear my siblings laughing at me and directed some wrath towards them.

"Spoilsport," Emmett laughed. "If the shoe was on the other foot, you'd be laughing your tiny ass off."

Bella was nervous as she considered my offer. "Uh, well, I had thought I was going to sit with Angela, but... you can sit with us if you like."

I hesitated. I wasn't sure how comfortable I was at the prospect of sitting with other students.

"Say 'yes,' you idiot," Alice groaned. Her voice was closer as they moved closer to us.

My concentration back on Bella, I studied her earnest face. "Sure. That'd be great." Happiness flowed out of her. I couldn't believe my luck that this girl was actually excited at the thought of spending time with me. I did not deserve this.

I could feel them approaching but didn't expect Emmett to throw his arm around my neck. "Come on, Jazz. Step away from the pretty lady before you make her late for class," he jested, causing Bella to blush furiously.

"I'll see you at lunch, then," she said softly as Emmett began to drag me away bodily.

I tried to struggle out of Emmett’s grasp, but Alice's hiss made me stop and reassess the situation. "’Till then," I replied to Bella before turning to my siblings.

"Nice one, bro. She's cute." Emmett punched my arm playfully.

"Stay away from her," I growled.

"Oh, come on, dude. Let me have my fun. This is a big deal."

"I'm aware of how 'big' this is."

"Just leave him alone, Emmett," Rosalie said softly, catching my eye, and I nodded my thanks.

"But babe, we've never got to watch one of us courting. He's so adorable." He pinched my cheek like I was a small child.

"Quit it." I swatted his hand away.

Alice stepped in front of us all, stopping us in our tracks. "Here's what's going to happen. We ALL back off, and let Jasper get to know Bella. No teasing, Em. This is a hard enough situation—for all of us—without any added pressure, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Emmett grinned as Rosalie nodded silently.

"Thanks, Ali." I gave her a look of camaraderie.

"Now, go. Get to class, all of you," she demanded.

I was watching the main door to C Block, where Bella was just disappearing.

"Four hours," Alice whispered to me with a fond look. "Then you'll be right next to her."

 

* * *

 

  
  


I felt like an idiot. I had spent decades at war, leading soldiers into battle without fear, and yet approaching that long table in the middle of the cafeteria filled me with incredible nervous tension. I looked over to the table by the window, where my family was settling down, wishing I was with them, but my body continued to move towards Bella.

"Hi," she said softly as I got near and moved along the bench to make room for me. We were at the end of the long table which seemed to be filled with a good portion of the junior class. It was rather... overwhelming for my senses. They were so much closer to me than during classes, and the pulsing blood and teenage emotions mingled, making me more flustered than I was the other times I'd been around Bella.

Apart from initial salutations, I was content to let the conversation happen around me, allowing Bella's scent to flood over me. I would lean closer to her each time I took a breath, taking in the Bella-saturated air with fewer scent particles from other humans. Most of my effort went into swallowing the filth they called food and monitoring the emotions around me.

Bella had waves of anxiety and nervousness periodically, and embarrassment each time attention was on her. She was asked a multitude of questions about her life at her old school, which I learned was in Arizona, and she always kept her answers brief, diverting attention elsewhere quickly. She seemed to be a true introvert, and I felt the need to protect her from the constant scrutiny.

A few of the boys were paying her too much attention and had some feelings toward her which I did not approve of. When the Newton kid reached across the table and touched her hand, I could feel a growl rumbling through my chest that only stopped when Bella sent me a confused look.

"You don't ever talk to these people normally, do you?" she whispered, leaning close to me so that I could almost taste her skin.

I glanced around the table before looking back at her, directly into her eyes. "Uh... not so much," I admitted.

She smiled conspiratorially. "How about tomorrow we sit where you choose?"

I couldn't help the huge grin that spread across my face. She wanted to have lunch with me again? "That would be lovely."

"It hasn't been too bad sitting here, though, has it?"

"I'd much prefer to be right here where I am, than at my normal table." Her face was turned toward me, so close to my own, and I studied and memorized every tiny freckle decorating her nose and cheeks. There was such perfection in the imperfections.

I glanced across at Angela before leaning in to whisper in Bella's ear, swallowing back the venom that pooled in my mouth from being so close to her jugular. "I've got something to tell you this afternoon, too. You'll like it."

I couldn't help smirking both at the questioning look she sent me, and her frustration when I shook my head to indicate I wasn't going to gossip until we were alone.

My body shook at that thought. Alone. We were going to be completely alone after school. The prospect of getting to know her better thrilled me to the core. My mind drifted away to how it would be to breathe in nothing but her essence for hours—bliss.

Around us, people began collecting their belongings and dumping their trash and trays. I reluctantly did the same, my body protesting with every inch I moved away from her.

Alice stopped me before I made it to the door, excusing us. Bella smiled softly and said goodbye.

"See you in class," I reminded her as she walked away then turned my attention to Alice.

Nervousness trickled from her. "Um.... do you want me to come with you this afternoon?" She looked up at me earnestly. "If you don't feel like you'll be in control around her, I can hang out in the tree...."

I considered the option. While I hadn't spent any time alone with a human, I didn't feel like Bella was in any danger by being with me.

"I believe I'll be okay."

She nodded and allowed her eyes to flutter closed, forcing a vision out. "Yes, you will be." She smiled. "I'm proud of you. Really, I am."

"Thanks. I'll keep my phone next to me, in case anything changes."

"Good idea. I'll keep an eye out for you." She seemed deep in thought.

I sent her my sincere appreciation.

"We'll talk when I return home," I assured her.

She smirked at me. "And we have all the hours during 'Bella watch' tonight."

"We're going again?"

"Yup." She smiled. "You really are a lost cause when it comes to being away from her."

I looked down the hall where she had just disappeared. "Yeah, I am."

  
  



	5. Chapter Five

When I met Bella at her truck after school ended, I had to ignore the lascivious comments coming from Emmett across the lot, which luckily no humans seemed to hear. I wanted to flip him the bird, but Bella was noticing my distraction. She was looking at me curiously.

“Hey,” she said shyly, stopping a foot in front of me. Every cell in my body tingled at her closeness.

“Hi.” I had become such a great conversationalist in the last two days. I could see Alice standing across the lot, practically vibrating with the anticipation of meeting Bella. “Can I ask you a favor?”

“Of course.” She caught my eye and my dead heart seemed to flutter again.

“My, um… sister” —Well, calling Alice my sister sure felt weird— “She wants to meet you.”

“Uh, I guess that’d be okay.” Nervousness spiked through her.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

A tiny frown flitted across her features. “No, no. I’d like to meet your family.”

I jerked my head at Alice, and she approached us at a careful, human girl pace.

“Uh, Bella… this is Alice.” I stood awkwardly, trying to work out what else to say. I quickly realized that I didn’t _need_ to say anything.

“I’m so happy to meet you,” Alice chirped, shaking Bella’s hand. Bella didn’t flinch at all from her cold touch and I looked at Alice curiously.

“Warmed it up on the car engine,” she explained low enough for Bella not to hear.

“Uh…. You too?”

“Jasper just wouldn’t stop talking about you last night,” Alice told the girl conspiratorially.

My face would have been as red as Bella’s if it was possible. I quickly elbowed my wife in the ribs and looked at Bella bashfully.

I tuned them out as they chatted about pantyhose or whatever it was that girls talked about, and took in Bella’s facial expressions. She was really like an open book; every feeling she expressed was written on her delicate features. She never seemed to be deceptive and seemed truly interested in what Alice was saying.

“…isn’t that right, Jazz?” Alice was smirking at me.

I looked between the two girls, unsure how to respond. “Um….”

“My point,” Alice said with a wave of her hand in my direction, causing Bella to giggle and look up at me briefly through her lashes.

I’d obviously missed the two of them mocking me in some way. I sent a glare in Alice’s direction but I couldn’t stay mad at Bella. Instead, I inched closer to her, feeling the warmth emanating from her.

“We really should be going, Alice.” She picked up on the frustration in my voice, smirking lightly at me.

“Okay.” She smiled. “I’ll pick you up from Bella’s house when you’re done, Jazz.” She gave me a pointed look — as if I’d just forget to leave. “It was so lovely to meet you, Bella. I just know we’ll be great friends.”

Bella was slightly taken aback by the statement but she recovered quickly. “It was nice meeting you too,” she said softly before reaching into her backpack for her keys.

As she unlocked the door, I swooped in to hold it open for her and offered my hand to boost her up into the seat. _Oh, dear Lord_. I couldn’t imagine ever getting used to the feeling of touching her skin. The fire that ran through my body was intense. She must have felt something too, because her breath hitched slightly and her skin flushed. Her eyes flicked to mine and our gazes locked. I was so used to gazing into golden eyes, but these brown ones were so perfect — like they were the first set of eyes I had ever seen.

I had to force myself to turn away and move around to enter the passenger side.

“She’s nice,” Bella said softly as she started the engine, and I couldn’t help but voice my agreement.

We didn’t say anything else as she drove toward her house, and I didn’t mind. I was too busy breathing in her intoxicating scent and watching the minute facial twitches as she tried to concentrate on the road. She was distracted, her emotions racing, and some sadistic side of me hoped that I was the cause.

“Well, here we are,” she said unnecessarily as we pulled into her driveway. Having to keep to a human speed, I wasn’t fast enough to get to her door before she opened it, but I made sure I helped her out of the cab of the truck. It _was_ the gentlemanly thing to do. Who was I kidding? I really just wanted to touch her again.

Bella let us into the house and gave me a cursory tour of the small lower level. I had to act like this was the first time I had seen these rooms – like I hadn’t spent the previous night watching her walk around them.

She stood awkwardly as she directed me to a seat at the kitchen table. I placed my cellphone in front of me so I wouldn’t miss a text from Alice. “Do you want anything to eat? Drink? Um…” She felt nervous, and kept glancing around the kitchen and shifting her weight between her feet.

Sending her an ounce of calm, I patted the chair next to me. “No, really, Bella. I’m fine. Come sit.”

Frowning slightly, she acquiesced and slid into place only inches from my side. Again, my skin tingled at her proximity. Even though I could feel she was enjoying my company, she was still tense as she pulled her notebook out of her backpack and opened it in front of us.

“Would you like to hear about what I saw at lunch?” I asked, hoping that the tid-bit of gossip would help loosen her up.

She looked at me curiously. “Uh, sure.”

“I have a feeling that you and I are the first ones to know this,” I told her conspiratorially, leaning close. Girls loved this gossip stuff, didn’t they? And the drama of the telling was part of fun, from what I had observed. “There’s a potential new couple who were at our lunch table today. And even they don’t know it yet.”

She frowned at me. “What do you mean?”

“They have feelings for each other – little crushes I guess you would call it – but neither knows. In fact, both seem to feel that they have no chance.”

“How do you know this?” She wasn’t accusatory - simply curious.

I paused, making sure that my wording was just right, and proceeded slowly. “I just have a knack for these things. You could say that I’m tuned in to the emotions of those around me more than most people.” That was technically the truth – I hated the idea of lying to her – it still made me sound human.

She nodded thoughtfully, seeming to accept my explanation. “Are you going to tell me who?”

“Do you want to guess?” I teased.

“You know what? I really don’t.” Her voice stayed light.

I smiled at her and touched her arm with just the tips of my fingers, revelling in the electric feeling for a second. “Angela.”

“And…?”

“And Ben.”

 _And hopefully you and I_ , I added in my head.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I thought you were going to say Mike and Jessica. Because that’s not a secret at all. I’ve been at this school two days and I worked that one out. But Angela? Those are impressive deductive skills you have there, Sherlock.”

“Good secret?”

“Definitely a good secret.” She smiled shyly before ducking her head to look at her notes.

After a few seconds, she looked back up at me. “One day you’re going to have to tell me how you discovered this ‘knack’.”

I studied her carefully. She seemed genuinely curious, not suspicious. “I will.” I knew that the day would come when she would find out everything there was to know about my darker life. It didn’t matter whether she worked it out for herself or because I told her.

The way her lips moved as she spoke about the project mesmerized me. There was something about the way she formed her words —each sentence almost feeling like it had to be forced out of her mouth— which was fascinating. She seemed both forthcoming and like she was holding something back at the same time. Then she would look up at me, and for that second her body would relax as, if she were reassured of my presence.

“Are you okay, Jasper?”

I shook myself back to the present. “Uh, yeah.”

“You seemed distracted by something.”

 _Distracted by you,_ I thought —and by her sudden blush I almost believed that I had spoken the words out loud.

She sat in rapt attention as I told her what I knew about the Battle of Chickamauga, making my ego swell.

“Do I even want to know how you know all this?” she muttered, and I was unsure if it were to herself or a legitimate question. Her eyes settled on my face, urging me to answer still.

“Yet another thing that you will find out in time, sweetheart,” I said softly, running my finger along the prominent vein in her hand.

Her startled eyes met mine at the endearment I hadn’t even meant to say. My mind whirled a mile a minute. _Too soon. Too much. You’ll scare her away, you imbecile._ Panic flared through me in the indeterminate seconds that ticked by. I debated whether I should use my gift to confuse her enough that she would forget the slip of my tongue.

She wasn’t any ordinary girl, though. A shy smile spread across her lips. I felt awe and contentment flood her, quickly followed by an overwhelming happiness.

My long-stilled heart ached – but in a good way. She really liked the endearment. If that was truly the case, how many more words of love could I bestow upon her before she had enough? 

She bit down on her bottom lip, almost breaking skin in the process, and I held my breath until I could stop myself from staring at the site and imagining the tempting liquid beneath. I may not be enticed by the scent of her blood, but that didn't mean I was made of stone—metaphorically, of course. Thinking about it still made me thirsty, even if it wasn't for her.

My mind drifted on and off as she talked about the research she had already done, hypnotised by the undulations of her speech.

She paused and glanced up at the oven clock. How was it possible that two hours had already passed? Had I really zoned out that much while observing her that I’d lost track of time like a human?

“My dad will be home soon,” she told me, nibbling on her fingernail. She was disappointed and a little frustrated, and while I couldn’t be sure, I hoped that it was disappointment that I would be leaving.

I didn’t want to get into the habit of altering her emotions, but just the teeniest amount of reassurance wouldn’t hurt, right?

“Hey.” I took hold of her hand and gently removed it from her mouth. My skin sizzled at the contact. “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah.” She sighed contentedly, and I knew that my manipulation had been successful.

I shifted in my seat, inching toward her. The knowledge that our time was almost up made my body ache. I began to wonder how I could get her to invite me to stay longer. As I opened my mouth to inquire what her plans for the evening were, I was interrupted by my cellphone vibrating on the table.

Rolling my eyes, I punched the screen to read the text from Alice. _‘Don’t, Jazz. Come home. Don’t overwhelm her; leave her wanting more.’_

Sighing, I pocketed the phone as Bella stood. “I have to go, too,” I told her, frowning slightly.

She looked down at the floor, filled with disappointment.

It hurt to leave her standing on the front porch as I walked out to the curb. I couldn’t help turning back to look at her several times. She was gripping the doorframe tightly and smiling softly at me.

Alice was smirking at me as I slid into the car. “It was a good afternoon then?”

I tried to keep my face straight as I took a last glimpse of the Swan house. “It was the second best day of my existence,” I breathed, as Alice sped away.

“Second?”

“Yesterday was first, obviously.”

I looked over at her slightly tense posture, and frowned. “The day we met comes in third, you know.”

“I know.” She didn’t look over at me, and kept her eyes unnecessarily on the empty road.

We sat in silence for the remainder of the journey. Her nervousness spiked as we pulled up to the house.

“Ali? What’s wrong?”

She exited the car and looked at me over the roof of the vehicle. She could only just see over the top. “I just… have something to show you.”

Confused, I looked at her and walked around the hood.

“Upstairs,” she indicated and took my hand, threading her fingers through mine.

We paused in front of our bedroom door and she turned to me. “Before you say anything, hear me out.”

“Uh … okay.” I nodded as she opened the door.

I was taken aback at the sight before me and froze in the doorway.

“Come on, Jazz. Come and sit down.”

I looked around as she pulled me to the bed— the bed which was no longer covered in a frilly pink comforter. It was now striped brown and blue. Everything around me was just … wrong. To be specific, everything around me was _mine_. All of Alice’s possessions seemed to be missing. I looked at her questioningly.

“I’ve moved into the guest room.”

“No. You don’t have to …”

“Yes. I do.”

“But …”

“Jasper, I love you. So much. But you already knew that.”

“I lo-”

She interrupted me. “Shhh….” Taking both my hands in hers, she looked up at me with pained eyes. “Honey, we can’t stay together. You know that. And as hard as this is for both of us, we really do need to separate. You can’t be bringing Bella over here while we are still living together. We need our own space and time to ourselves to really accept what’s happening to us.”

I stared at her in misery. My wife was moving out of our bedroom.

“I’m only going down the hall, honey. And I meant everything I said since you first saw Bella. I do love you. This is just the first step to wean us off each other.”

She reached up behind her neck and removed her necklace – the necklace on which she kept her wedding ring while we pretended to be students.

“And that’s why I’m taking this off.”

I looked at her, aghast. I couldn’t understand how she could be so calm as she basically ended our marriage. My own emotions were all over the place. If I had been human, I would have been crying, as evidenced by the wavering breath that escaped me.

“What is happening with Bella doesn’t just take away everything that we’ve had, Alice — everything that we’ve shared.”

She smiled sadly, and her distress spiked quickly before she tamped it down again. “No, it doesn’t. And that’s why I’m not giving the ring back to you, just taking it off.” Anguish soared through her, and I fought the instinct to take it away. “This ring still represents our time together, and how much we loved each other— _love_ each other. Nobody can take that away from us, just like nobody can take this ring away from me. Because in a hundred years’ time, when this no longer hurts, I’m going to be able to look at this and only feel happiness. This is a symbol of you and me, and the decades of bliss we had.”

She was barely holding herself together. I gestured at her. “May I?” When she nodded, I eased away the harsh edges of her pain; just enough so she could finish the conversation in one piece.

She smiled wanly at me. “I guess the up-side of having false identities all the time is that we don’t have to get a legal divorce.”

I nodded, watching my fingers caress hers. Even back when we first married, we didn’t sign a marriage certificate—legalities meant little to our kind.

“So, we’re not married anymore?” I whispered.

She shook her head. “I almost wish Bella were here so that I could symbolically ‘give’ you to her. But, I guess that’s just me being dramatic.” A flicker of amusement spread through her.

Lightening the mood wasn’t a bad thing. I rolled my eyes. “Because that wouldn’t both freak her out and make her ask questions we couldn’t answer.”

Alice grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at her. “One day very soon you’ll be able to answer them for her.”

“Soon?”

She nodded. “Sooner than you expect.”

We sat in silence, the acceptance slowly sinking in.

I sighed, breaking the quiet. “This is no longer the second best day of my life, I gotta admit.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. You had to do it.”

We both stood and walked to the door. This was it; the second she walked out that door, our marriage was over. Sure, I knew that technically I couldn’t stay with Alice and have Bella too, but it had still thrown me for a loop. The one constant in my life, my bright spark in all the darkness of my existence, was burning out.

I pulled her into a tight hug, kissing the top of her head. I didn’t want to let go—not with the finality that letting go would bring.

“I love you so much,” I whispered against her hair.

“I know,” she replied, her voice wavering. “I love you too. Always.”

Before I could process that she was no longer in my arms, the door was closed, leaving me in a room lacking in any feminine objects. I could hear the guest room door closing. My palm rested against the door she had left through. The warmth of the wood was like the warmth that Alice had brought to my world for decades. Pulling my hand away, the warmth receded.

I took the two necessary steps and flopped down onto the mattress.

And two doors down the hall, I could hear Alice’s tearless sobs echoing around the room.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's okay. If you ran out of tissues after that last chapter, you're fine -- won't need them for a while.

 

Alice didn’t come with me to watch over Bella the night after our official break-up. Or the night after that. When I saw my now ex-wife at home, the broken look I couldn’t help but give her filled her with pain.

“Just give me a couple of days, Jazz. I need to get my head sorted,” she whispered as I approached her. Her voice was full of anguish.

All I could do in reply was nod. As much as I felt hurt by the circumstances we found ourselves in, Alice must be hurting more.

I, at least, had Bella. Her presence was what kept me sane. Lunch was now the best part of my day – it meant unfettered time with Bella. Ever since Wednesday, we had sat together—either at the table with the other juniors or by ourselves. I would spend the time gently questioning her, trying to keep the topic off me and my past, and pretending to eat the junk they considered food.

The weekend was horrible. I didn’t have a real reason to be there, so I couldn’t just turn up at her house. Instead, I spent most of Saturday as I spent my nights—hanging out in the trees encircling her backyard and listening to her clean, do laundry, and finish her homework. When she and her father left to eat at the diner, I followed them and “accidentally” bumped into them outside. I berated myself for my stalker-like tendencies, but the feeling I got when I surreptitiously grazed my hand against hers quickly defeated any rogue guilty thoughts floating through my head.

In the very early hours of Sunday morning, Emmett appeared in the tree next to mine, concerned. He insisted that I go hunting with him, and it wasn’t until he suggested it that I realized I hadn’t gone in days. As much as I was loathe to leave Bella alone, Emmett quickly swayed me by reminding me that she would be safer if I was well-fed. Even though I knew that I could never do anything to hurt her and would never consider drinking from her, mistakes happened. It was like some form of torture to be hundreds of miles from her, and the aching in my chest was almost unbearable. I ensured that we returned as soon as was possible, and though my brother teased me for it, he was filled with empathy. 

So it was that after two days of barely seeing her, Monday was exceptionally sweet. After getting to school early to wait for her, she and I promised we would spend lunch together, just the two of us, and excitement filled me as the noon hour drew closer.

I was waiting at a small empty table when she entered the cafeteria, and my excitement quickly faded as I singled out her emotions as she collected her food.

“Bella? What’s wrong?” I asked softly as she seated herself opposite me.

“It’s, uh, nothing.” She swirled her tiny plastic spoon through a tub of pudding, not eating it, but using it as a distraction.

“Please tell me?”

Silence stretched between us until I reached out and ran my fingertips along the back of her hand to regain her attention.

She sighed. “Did I do something wrong?”

“What? No. Never.” I couldn’t comprehend why she would think that she was anything but perfect, or why she was emanating such uncertainty.

I didn’t want to push her, so let her tell me in her own time.

“On Wednesday Alice was so excited to meet me, and she seemed so nice, and I had thought… But since that day—I swear she sees me coming in the hall and turns the other way. It’s like she’s avoiding me.”

I glanced across the cafeteria at where Alice was sitting. She could obviously hear our conversation and wasn’t even pretending to ignore us. I frowned slightly in her direction, and she sent me back a contrite look.

“You haven’t done anything,” I reassured her. “Alice just—” I paused. “Alice has had a pretty bad week. It has nothing to do with you.” _Well, nothing that I can tell you about, anyway._ “She’ll be back to her old self in no time, I’m sure. And then I’m sure she’ll want to spend time with you.”

“Oh, she doesn’t need to—”

“She wants to. Trust me.”

Bella nodded thoughtfully before finally starting to eat her pudding.  

“I was wondering,” she started between bites. I looked up into her sweet face curiously. “You normally sit with your family, right?”

I nodded.

“You do know that you can sit with them, don’t you? I don’t see why you feel that you need to keep me company.”

For a second, I felt hurt that perhaps she was brushing me off and didn’t want to spend time with me, but quickly threw away that thought. Her emotions told me loud and clear that she liked having me around.

“Bella.” I sighed softly. “I truly want to be here with you. There is nowhere I would rather be.”

She finished off her pudding and discarded the cup onto the tray. “We could _both_ sit with them if that’d make you most happy.”

“Sweetheart,” I said, taking her hand between both of mine. She blushed slightly at the endearment. “If you hadn’t noticed, I quite enjoy having you all to myself.”

She nibbled on her bottom lip and her heartbeat increased slightly at my admission. 

“But,” I amended, “if you’d like to, we can sit with them one day this week. You can meet the rest of the family.”

She nodded shyly before averting her eyes towards the table.  “All except one, right?”

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated. “On my first day here, there were five of you right? I wasn’t just imagining that?”

“Edward,” I confirmed softly.

“Yeah, that’s the name Jessica told me. He, uh, seemed rather…. unfriendly.”

Well, if she wanted to call being on the verge of slaughtering her ‘unfriendly’, we could go with that description.

“I haven’t seen him since that day. Has he been sick? He sure looked it that day.”

I squeezed her hand gently. “He’s, uh, visiting with some friends up in Alaska.” _Technically true._ “So, no, he won’t be joining us for lunch any time soon.”

A flood of relief ran through her.

He had obviously scared her with his near-attack. While the day we met would forever be the best day of my existence, it was somewhat marred by Edward’s reaction, and furthermore by my own lack of reaction. I shuddered to think what would have happened if Emmett hadn’t been there to restrain Edward. Those few precious seconds when I had been forced immobile by her presence could have been fatal for her, and for that possibility I would always be ashamed. Ashamed that one hair on her head could have been harmed. 

“I’ll protect you from now on,” I whispered. Her eyes darted to my face, knowing I had said something, but unable to make out the words. She frowned in confusion and I simply smiled tightly in response.

It was with an ache in my limbs that I let her leave for Biology, wishing—not for the first time—that we had more than the one class together. I couldn’t help but compare our “involvement” to my relationship with Alice. With Alice, we both knew that we were mates, and our affection was always equal. We knew instinctively that the other felt just the way that we did. The hardest thing I was finding with the _Pereche_ bond was that while Bella was still human, our affection would remain off-kilter. I was feeling the full force of the bond while she was only feeling a portion of it. It felt like until she was changed, I would constantly be waiting for her to catch up to me.

Just this past weekend was evidence. If I had been human, I would have been close to tears with the pain I felt being away from her. Yet while she was happy to see me on Monday, her life had continued on as normal. She didn’t feel that flood of relief to finally be within touching distance like I had.

I knew that she liked me—that she felt a connection and something like a pull towards me—but it was as if she was at the edge of a swimming hole, nervously dipping her big toe into the shallows. I, on the other hand, was running towards the edge at full speed, wanting to cannonball straight to the middle. The only thing stopping me was the sight of her timidly standing there, frightened of getting splashed.

I so desperately wanted to take that leap, but didn’t know how to do so without scaring her away.

I spent History just staring at her from across the aisle. Those around us probably realized how smitten I was. In fact, from the bursts of amusement coming from the other students, I was fairly sure they knew just how besotted I had become. Every so often Bella would sneak a glance over at me, blushing when she noticed my eyes trained directly on her face. I tried to concentrate on the lesson. I really did. It just seemed so pointless when there were much more interesting things in the room. I’d heard it all before, anyway.

When the final bell rang, I moved as fast as humanly possible to the parking lot to wait at the behemoth she called a truck.

My skin tingled as she approached me, fiddling with her keys. “Bella,” I said with a relieved sigh.

Amused, she gave me a small smile. “Whatcha doing here?”

“Waiting for you,” I replied, smirking.

“Uh… for any particular reason?”

 _Because I can’t go longer than an hour without seeing you._ Probably not the answer to give when wanting to _not_ scare her away.  “Because I had something to ask you,” I blurted out. _What? Where did that come from?_ I searched frantically through my brain for something I _could_ ask her.

She gazed at me, waiting for the promised question, and I felt time passing us by while I breathed in her scent and stared into her deep brown eyes until she glanced away, embarrassed.

“Saturday,” I said finally.

“Saturday? What about it?”

“Well, I was hoping that you’d do me the honor of spending the day with me.” _So, apparently I lost my footing and fell into that darn swimming hole without intending to._

Her heart fluttered as she looked me up and down. “Like… a date?”

Ever so slowly I reached out my right hand and to grasp her left. Tingles ran up my arm at the contact, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she seemed to shiver. I hoped that it was from anticipation and not because of my cold skin.

I met her eyes and a smirk slid across my mouth. “Not _like_ a date. An actual date.”

“Okay,” she breathed.

“You don’t want to sleep on it or something?”

“No,” she said with conviction. “No need to sleep on it. I want to go.”

A grin practically split my face in half. “Great.” I rubbed my thumb caressingly across the back of her hand before reluctantly releasing it.

I couldn’t entirely believe that had just happened. Bella had agreed to go on a date with me! It simultaneously felt incredibly fast and nowhere near fast enough. But I couldn’t tell her that; she wouldn’t understand without knowing all the details of my unbreakable connection to her.

“Where are you planning to take me?” she asked as she unlocked and opened the door.

With the spontaneity of my proposal, I had no plans whatsoever in place. “It’s a surprise,” I hedged.

“Okay,” she said hesitantly before sliding into the truck.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, anyway,” I promised.

She nodded, smiling at me, and pulled away. Thinking I couldn’t hear her, she squealed slightly as she drove away, and elation poured off her in waves.

I stood in the spot her truck had just vacated and watched her drive away.

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” I whispered at her departing vehicle.

If I had known what was going to happen the next day, I think I would have said it to her face.

But as the dense grey clouds rolled in overhead, I had no idea what was awaiting us.


	7. Chapter Seven

It began snowing at 2:46am. It only lasted until 4:31am, but that was enough. The damage had already been done. The sidewalks and roads were slick with ice by the time the Mayor woke up and ordered the plow out.

Not long after the lamp in Chief Swan’s bedroom came on, my cellphone rang.

“Alice.” I was still unsure exactly how to speak to her. In the last day or so, her emotions had seemed to settle down, but I didn’t think she was exactly “over” what had happened between us. It would take more than a couple of days to return to normal.

“Come home, Jasper,” she ordered without preamble.

“No, the roads are treacherous. I’m going to wait and drive Bella to school.”

“In what?”

“I can drive her truck.”

“Yeah, that will go over well,” Alice muttered.

I ignored her comment and was about to hang up when she began talking again.

“I have three reasons why you should come home.”

“Enlighten me,” I mumbled.

“One, you can’t just turn up on her doorstep. Have you even planned anything to say? You can’t tell her that you walked there in a snowstorm.”

I considered arguing that point. I was sure I could come up with a reason.

“Two, you look like the abominable snowman. You can’t go to school like that. You need to come home and change your clothes.”

I looked down, huffing. She was right on that count. I was covered in about a half inch of snow, since I hadn’t moved since the snowfall had ended.

“Three, have you seen Bella’s truck? Nothing will ever hurt her when she’s in it. It’s practically a tank. She’ll be _fine_.”

“You can never be too cautious,” I objected.

“Regardless. Look down, Jasper.” Her voice was smug. I took a glance down at the driveway and saw Bella’s father emerge from the garage with snow chains. He headed straight for the orange contraption with a direct purpose. “See—extra protection,” Alice pointed out.

“But, I...”

“Trust me. She will get to school in one piece without you. She has been through much more dangerous situations without your help before now, you know.”

I growled lowly. “You know, that really doesn’t make me feel better.”

I watched quietly while Chief Swan attached the chains, making sure he was putting them on correctly.

“Come home,” Alice repeated.

I sighed. “Fine.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to snag a deer or two on your way home,” she suggested.

“I’ll be fine until tomorrow.”

“So stubborn.” She sighed as I ended the call.

Glancing at the time on my phone, I decided I would be late if I hunted on the way home like Alice suggested. It wasn’t like I was actually thirsty, but I promised myself to get at least a snack that night.

As it was, I had time to spare. I was ready for school early and joined Emmett out on the front steps as we waited for the girls.

“Hey, man,” he grunted. “Been out doing your monkey impressions tonight?”

I raised an eyebrow at him in question.

“You know…hanging out in trees?”

“Oh, yes.”

He turned towards me and curiosity was seeping from him. “Can you tell me what it’s like?”

“What _what_ is like?”

He sighed, frustrated. “Having a Pereche. What does it feel like? I mean, are you happy?”

I considered that question. _Was_ I happy? My life had certainly been simpler before I met Bella. I had been perfectly happy with Alice. Things between us had been wonderful. Was I happier now? Perhaps being around Bella made everything seem right with the world.

“Yes, I believe I am.”

He looked at me curiously. “Believe?”

“Well, there are some obvious obstacles in my life right now, but it’s worth it. When I’m near her, it’s like I’m suddenly the “glass half full” guy. I almost don’t recognize myself. Instead of thinking about the obstacles, all I can focus on is the future. It’s like I know that being with her will make me the happiest I’ve ever been. Just the potential of that seems to have heightened my mood exponentially.”

“Does it hurt?”

I nodded. “The further I’m away from her, the more my body seems to ache. It’s as if there’s a pull in my chest. Something is tethering me to her.”

“That doesn’t sound too pleasant.”

I gripped the pillar opposite of where he was leaning. “Not exactly, but it’s just incentive to return to her, I guess. The relief that floods through me when I can see and smell her again is intense. In that second, you forget the discomfort you had earlier. It really is a strange feeling when you try and explain it.”

“Yeah,” he said smiling. “I don’t get it.”

“I don’t expect you ever will.”

“I’m okay with that. I don’t want anyone but Rosie.”

I sent him a sad smile. “Yeah, I remember that feeling.”

“If you could go back in time and stop yourself from meeting her, would you?”

I hesitated. The potential was intriguing as I’d still be happy with Alice. However, if I had never met Bella, I wouldn’t feel complete. “I really don’t know.”

The door opened as the girls emerged. Rosalie immediately gravitated towards Emmett, and he instinctively wrapped an arm around her. I don’t think they even realized that they were doing that half the time.

Alice hung back awkwardly. We glanced at each other but didn’t say anything.

My siblings were frustrated the entire journey to school as I kept asking Alice to check Bella’s future. I wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going to crash. No matter what I did, I couldn’t change their moods.

“Enough!” Rosalie snapped after the sixth time. “I’ll turn this car right around and don’t think I won’t.”

“Yes, Mom,” I muttered and managed to keep my worries to myself for the remainder of the journey. Instead, I concentrated on how the pulling in my chest was dissipating somewhat as we drove.

To my relief, Bella was already parked when we pulled into the parking lot.

“Told you,” Alice said softly.

I nodded my acknowledgment. “Yeah, yeah.”

She darted around the car and grabbed my arm. “You didn’t really think I’d lie to you about this, did you? About anything?”

“My head tells me you wouldn’t,” I said with a sigh. “It’s not always my head that is making the decisions right now.”

Her light laughter filled the air as Emmett and Rosalie stopped next to us.

“What?” Emmett chuckled. “Is Little Jasper calling the shots now?”

“No, it’s not like that at all.” I glanced across the lot at where Bella was inspecting her truck. It appeared that she had just noticed the chains on her tires.

“It’s instinct, you pervert,” Rose pointed out, slapping her husband lightly on the arm.

I left the three of them standing by the car and strode across to meet Bella.

The students around us were generally frustrated—by the annoyance that snow naturally brought with it, I guessed—or excited. I sensed that several snowball fights were in the making and gripped my notebook tighter, ready to use it as a shield if necessary.

Bella’s emotions were different though. She was filled with love as she examined the tires, and I couldn’t help but smile. My pace slowed unconsciously as I watched her, letting her have her little moment in what I was sure was appreciation of her father.

Suddenly, panic sprung up from two directions. The first flash of panic came from one of our classmates—Tyler, I believe his name was. He had just entered the parking lot in a mini-van and was currently skidding on a patch of black ice. He cranked the steering wheel frantically in a vain attempt to get the vehicle under control, but he wasn’t able to make a difference to the trajectory without traction. He was going much too fast, and the van seemed to be spinning.

The second spike of panic came from Alice though. My head jerked around to look at her as she shook herself out of a vision. She locked eyes with me and whispered the one word that made me move.

“Bella.”

I tried to keep my run to a human pace and to not project my own fear and panic on those around me, but I was most likely unsuccessful.

All I did care about was getting to Bella in time because as soon as Alice warned me, I could see what was happening. The van was spinning still, but at its current trajectory, it was going to hit her. Hard.

Bella just noticed that there was an approaching vehicle. She was frozen to the spot when I snatched her into my arms and pulled her out of the way. We ended up between her truck and the neighbouring car as my arms locked like a vice around her quivering body. I absorbed most of the force of our landing on my side, but her shoulder hit the ground. I quickly rolled us both so she was resting on top of me. As predicted, the van hit right where Bella had been standing before sliding to the side and impacting the green Camry on the other side of us. Cradling Bella’s head, I pushed off the ground with my heels, retreating another eight feet before the Camry enveloped our landing spot. The crunch of metal on metal sounded its death blow, and all was quiet. Shock echoed around us from all sides.

Bella’s breath escaped her lungs in a rush, and she blinked rapidly several times. It took her several seconds to register where she was.

“Ja—Jasper?”

“I’ve got you.” I commanded my arms to loosen their grip on her, and she turned, taking in the carnage behind us.

She gasped as she realized just how close she had come to being an insignificant part of the twisted wreckage. She turned to me with fear-filled eyes.

“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “Nothing will hurt you.” My grip tightened protectively.

 “Jasper?” she whispered.

“Mmm?”

“It’s a bit too tight. You’re hurting me.”

I instantly dropped my arms, and she pulled back slightly to look at me.

“Ja—Jasper?” Bella stuttered. “Are you okay? Are you in pain?” She scrambled out of my lap, which caused me to growl lowly and reach out to her.

Alice approached hesitantly. “Bella? Maybe you should come with me—away from this mess.”

My growls grew progressively louder as Alice led her a few yards from me onto the grass. They were now loud enough for humans to hear. Bella kept glancing at me, worriedly.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked Alice softly.

“Uh, adrenaline,” Alice replied, and she began looking Bella over for injuries.

I don’t know what happened, but something inside me snapped. Ensuring Bella’s safety was _my_ job, and I needed desperately to be doing it myself. I was on my feet before I could hold myself back.

When Emmett blocked my path, I growled even louder. “Man, you need to calm down. People are watching.”

“No,” I snarled. “Get out of my way. She’s mine. Alice shouldn’t be touching her.”

I barely noticed the sirens of emergency vehicles in the background and the stares of other students as I pushed Emmett out of the way as if he weighed nothing. I dropped to my knees in front of Bella and ignored her weak protests that she was fine before touching each bone to check for breaks or contusions.

Behind me, I heard one of the bystanders rush to open the door of the van to assist Tyler.

“Don’t breathe,” Alice hissed, but she was too late. The scent of freshly-spilled blood permeated the air. Even as I kept my eyes on Bella’s face, I felt my body tense, and my vision developed a distinct red gloss.

The shock on Bella’s face was enough to tell me that my eyes had turned to black. Trembling, I struggled to keep my gaze on her. I wasn’t going to leave her and go after the delicious scent.

I wanted it. I wanted it so bad. I hadn’t tasted human blood in years, but knowing it was so readily available made me want to snap. I clung to the last thread of sanity that I could muster. I could feel a snarl building in my chest, and my lips pulled back to reveal my teeth involuntarily.

Bella’s breathing and heart rate spiked as fear ran through her. “Jasper?” she whispered, and I felt myself being torn in two. Part of me needed to ensure that Bella was unharmed, and a more dominant part was ready to bound over the destroyed cars and drain Tyler dry.

Bella’s eyes were wide as she took in my expression. “Oh my Lord,” she muttered under her breath as her hand covered her mouth in shock.

I regretted having foregone my hunt this morning.


	8. Chapter Eight

_**Previously:**   
_

_Above me, Bella’s breathing and heart rate spiked and fear ran through her. “Jasper?” she whispered, and I felt myself being torn in two—part of me needed to ensure the Bella was unharmed, and a more dominant part was ready to bound over the destroyed cars and drain Tyler dry._

_Bella’s eyes were wide as she took in my expression. “Oh my Lord,” she muttered under her breath as her hand rose to cover her mouth in shock._

* * *

My mind was still mainly focused on Tyler. From what I’d heard people saying, he had suffered a head wound when he hit the steering wheel on impact—an injury notorious for bleeding profusely. My body was still primed to attack, but my mind was now more relaxed from the contact with Bella.

“Grab Jasper,” I heard Alice instruct Emmett and Rosalie at vampire speed. “I’ve got Bella. Get him inside away from the smell.” Her hands rested on Bella’s arms. “Come on, sweetie, let’s get both of you inside for some water and rest.”

“I’m fine,” Bella insisted softly.

“Just humor me, okay? Jasper, let’s go,” Alice instructed.

“I’m fine, too.”

We both knew I wasn’t. Alice hissed lowly, and I felt Emmett and Rosalie’s hands gripping my upper arms.

I could feel a rumbling growl echoing low in my chest as my eyes flicked back and forth between Bella and Tyler. My limbs remained tense and coiled to pounce as my siblings led me toward the closest empty classroom. I was forced into a chair near the front of the class while Bella settled herself on the desk across the aisle from me. Emmett stood sentry at the door, and Rosalie went around ensuring all the windows were closed tightly, not allowing any air in from the chaos outside. With all the doors and windows closed and the scent of blood diminished, I felt complete control coming back to me.

Alice glanced at me warily. “Can I check her properly for injuries now?” she asked at a volume Bella wouldn’t hear.

“No,” I responded at the same level. “I need to do it.” I wasn’t really sure _why_ I felt the need to do it myself; the Pereche bond, I assumed. “She barely knows you, anyway.”

Alice nodded once and stepped away, giving me space to kneel in front of Bella.

Her beautiful brown eyes were wide as she smiled shakily down at me.

I reached out hesitantly to touch her, running my hands gently over the socially acceptable areas of her body to check for any injuries. The electricity sparking through my hands at the touch almost distracted me from my task. “Are you okay? Are you in pain at all?”

“No. Nothing to worry about,” she said breathily just before my hand touched her shoulder, causing her to wince.

I raised an eyebrow at her, and she looked abashed. “I’m going to worry regardless,” I told her, trying to keep my tone playful when I felt anything but. “That wasn’t the question. It was whether you were in pain.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath and focused her gaze on my eyes. “A bit. I’m sure it’s just bruised, though.” Her emotions told me that she truly believed her assessment.

“Still, I’d rather you got checked out.” I heard the pleading tone in my voice. “Our father is a doctor at the hospital. He can check you over.”

“What about you?” She didn’t answer my question. “You took the impact of the fall. You need to be checked out too…”

“I’m fine,” I reassured her. “Honestly, I wasn’t hurt at all.”

“Jasper—” Her tone had a warning in it.

My hands rose up to curl the ends of her hair around my fingers as I considered our options logically. The strands felt so soft against my skin. “Okay. I’ll go to the hospital. But only if you come too.”

She nodded, satisfied.

“The ambulance is out there,” Rosalie informed us from her position by the window. “They’re taking Tyler. Bella, your father has just arrived too.”

Bella sighed. “He’ll overreact. More than you have,” she said, smirking slightly.

“Come on.” I helped her off the desk and guided her after my siblings, my hand resting ever so lightly on her back. We emerged outside just as the ambulance was pulling out of the parking lot, taking with it the object of my earlier desire. I felt relief as it drove away.

At our emergence, Chief Swan ran over, peppering Bella with questions about her health.

“Actually,” Alice interrupted. “Both Bella and Jasper got knocked around a bit, so Emmett was going to take them to get checked out by our father.” Concern flooded him as he looked the two of us over. “It’s nothing serious. I’m positive. Just a few bruises,” Alice reassured him. “We’re just being extra vigilant.”

Once Alice convinced him—with only a tiny bit of trust thrown at him from me—that the best thing he could do was to stay and do his job, Bella, Emmett and I took off with a warning that Chief Swan would follow to the hospital once he was done sorting out the damaged cars. Alice whispered to me as we left that she would call Carlisle to warn him we were coming and that I was in a delicate state, bloodlust wise.

We were quiet on the drive to the hospital. I spent the minutes monitoring Bella’s emotions. She emitted a steady stream of curiosity and would periodically turn from her seat in the front to glance at me. Her forehead would furrow as she caught my eye, and she would turn back to look out the windshield, deep in thought.

“God, sometimes I wish Edward was here so I knew what was going through that pretty little head,” I muttered lowly, causing amusement to spring from my brother.

“Just as long as he refrains from ripping her throat out?”

“ _Not_ funny.” I growled lowly but stopped instantly when Bella looked at me, confused.

Carlisle was waiting for us at the front entrance as we pulled up and escorted the two of us into an empty examining room, careful to take a course that kept us away from the ER.

After introductions, Carlisle and I waited in the corridor while Bella changed into a paper gown.

“Alice tells me you had a bit of trouble back there.”

“A bit.” I sighed heavily. “As much as part of me wanted to, though, I don’t think I would have actually gone after him.”

He raised an eyebrow at me.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe.”

We stood in silence for a few seconds while listening to the rustling of Bella’s clothing and her strong heartbeat on the other side of the door.

“She would have died if we hadn’t been there,” I said softly. “I could have lost her today. The impact—”

Carlisle nodded, sympathy filling him. “But you didn’t. You saved her. She’s fine.”

“I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t gotten to her on time.”

His hand clamped down on my shoulder reassuringly. “Yes, you do. You would have changed her. Just like I did with Esme and Rosalie did for Emmett. Even if it meant we had to flee.”

Bella’s soft voice called out that she was done, and we filed back into the room. She was biting her lip nervously and swinging her legs subtly as they hung over the side of the hospital bed. Her legs— _oh, Lord_ —were slightly paler than her face, thin and toned. The gown covered most of her thighs, but the sight of what was exposed was enough to make me freeze.

Carlisle cleared his throat unnecessarily, making me realize I was ogling her. Shaking myself out of my leg-induced stupor, I moved to sit on the mattress next to her. Hesitantly, I reached out to take her hand in my own, checking her expression for any sign that the contact was unwanted. Instead, her heart stuttered slightly, causing amusement to come from Carlisle, and she smiled softly up at me.

Carlisle proceeded with a cursory check for any broken bones or internal bleeding, which came up negative. The only injury she seemed to have was a contusion where her shoulder had hit the ground, which was quickly turning into quite an impressive bruise about the size of my hand. I couldn’t help the wince that escaped me when the hospital gown was moved to expose the bruising, and I ached with regret that I hadn’t protected her better. She was in pain, and it was all because I didn’t angle our fall perfectly.

“There’s a bit of muscle straining in that joint, also,” Carlisle explained. “Nothing to worry about, but it will heal faster if you don’t move it for a few days. I suggest a sling, just until Friday.”

“Do I have to?” There was a hint of a whine in her voice, and annoyance filled her. I caressed her hand gently to calm her and tweaked her emotions slightly to make her more compliant.

“I’m not going to insist, but it will stop you from injuring it further.”

She looked at me.

“It’s just for a couple of days, sweetheart.” I was evil—I knew it. I was well aware of how she seemed to melt when I used that name. But I was supportive of anything that would keep her healthy.

“Fine.” She sighed but didn’t seem too upset at the prospect anymore. In fact, she began to absently rub her thumb along my pinky finger. My eyes fluttered closed at the pleasure of her action.

When Carlisle returned from obtaining a sling, I was practically a puddle of goo on the floor from her gentle stroking. We hadn’t spoken a word while he had been gone, and somewhere in there she had realized what her thumb was doing, a sharp jolt of embarrassment spiking through her. When she moved her hand away, I let out a soft whimper of protest, and she resumed her actions fully cognizant.

I hated that she had to pull away to get dressed and for Carlisle to fit the sling to her arm, and she seemed slightly disappointed also.

“Just appease her?” I said softly to him as he stepped away from her. “Pretend to be giving me a check-up?”

He nodded imperceptibly and gave me a similar check as he had given Bella. Obviously, he found nothing amiss. Bella watched the whole process closely; a bit too closely for my liking.

“I think you’re both good to go,” Carlisle announced as he finished.

“Really? He’s fine?” Bella’s voice betrayed her bewilderment.

“Perfectly.”

“I’m just thick-skinned, I guess,” I told her, sliding down from the bed and reaching out to lift her to the floor.

Her eyes narrowed and she let out an unladylike grunt.

We followed my “father” to reception, again taking the long way around, away from the ER. Bella’s father was waiting for us near the reception desk, his hand casually resting on his sidearm, glaring at me slightly when he saw my hand resting on the small of his daughter’s back.

Bella was a pro at handling him, it seemed. She quickly reassured him that the sling was nothing but a precaution and that she was perfectly fine, before sticking the insurance papers under his nose to be signed. Once all her paperwork was finished, she ushered him out the door and back to work. He sent me a last glance before obeying her orders. He hadn’t had time to say one word to me, for which I was thankful.

“I told him that you’d make sure I got home safely, and that he didn’t need to waste any more time away from his job,” she told me quietly, and I nodded as if I hadn’t heard the entire conversation.

I glanced over at Emmett on the other side of the waiting area. He quickly strode over, informed us that he would stay and get a ride home with Carlisle, and threw me the car keys. Before I even had time to think, I was back in the enclosed space of Rosalie’s car with the scent of my Bella enveloping me.

 

 


	9. Chapter Nine

Bella was quiet on the journey to her house. About a mile from our destination, she was filled with determination.

“Pull over,” she said quietly.

I looked at her in confusion. “Huh?”

“Pull over.”

“Are you okay?” I asked as I eased the car onto the grass verge.

“Uh huh.” She turned toward me but looked down at the hand that wasn’t in a sling.  I turned my body to mirror hers and reveled at how close our knees were.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

She looked up at me, frowning, and bit down slightly on the side of her bottom lip. Her heart rate increased, and nerves spiked through her. “I don’t know how to say this. Or if I even should.” Her voice was soft and uncertain, a contrast to how confident she had been feeling when she first told me to pull over.

“You can tell me anything.”

She didn’t reply, but let her eyes wander, moving between my legs and her own. She wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“Please, Bella? If something is wrong, I want to be able to help fix it.”

“I don’t think you can fix this.” She sighed.

“Well, at least let me in so we can work it out. Together.”

I sent her a small amount of confidence to help loosen her tongue, and she closed her eyes briefly, calming herself. “I feel like I’m going crazy,” she said in a whisper.

“I’ve seen crazy in my time, sweetheart, and you are definitely not in their ranks.” The girl before me was perfect. There was nothing wrong with her brain at all.

She sighed heavily. “Not literally… I hope.”

I rested my fingertips on her jean-covered knees, feeling the rightness that came with our touching and hoping that the contact would help settle her. “Explain it to me.”

“It’s like… since I moved to Forks, weird things are happening. Both with me, and around me…” She trailed off.

I tensed slightly and hoped she didn’t notice. I had a feeling I knew where this was going. It would also explain why she was so thoughtful on the way to the hospital.

“What kind of things?”

“It’s a bunch of weird little things…” She hesitated for a moment before looking straight into my eyes. “But I’m starting to see that they all seem to be connected to you.”

She was so much more observant than most humans. I shouldn’t have been surprised that she would have analyzed our interactions.

“Tell me,” I urged in a voice not much more than a whisper. I absentmindedly stroked her knee, and she shivered.

“The first few days I was here, everything was fine.” Her eyes wandered as she tried to focus on the data she had accumulated in her brain. “Then I met you.” Her heart thudded three times in quick succession as she said that. “Things changed. I couldn’t concentrate like I used to. I’d find myself moving toward you without realizing it and would have to stop myself. I always seemed to know instinctively where you were in a room, without being able to see you. Even if you weren’t in the room, I would be able to tell basically where you were—like, which direction. Now, sure, I haven’t had a boyfriend to compare this with, but I’m pretty sure that’s not normal.”

She blanched and was filled with embarrassment suddenly. She covered her face with her hands, and I reached over to pry her injured arm away from her face and back to its resting place. The other hand remained over her eyes.

“I—I didn’t mean to say that you were my boyfriend. That’s not what I meant…” she stuttered out.

“Bella,” I said softly. “If you _had_ meant it that way, I would have been thrilled. You can’t imagine how much.”

Ever so slowly, she peeked out from behind her fingers. I sent her a little more confidence. “Can we forget for now that I said that?” she asked. “At least until after that date you promised me?” She smiled, and I couldn’t help smiling back at her. I was going to take her slip of the tongue as evidence that she _did_ want me to be her boyfriend. Maybe not today, but sometime in the not-so-distant future.

“Sure. I’ll forget about it. At least until Saturday.” I smirked slightly at her, and she blushed enticingly. I let my fingers brush against her hand, which was resting on her leg. “And Bella…?”

“Hmm?”

“If you’re insane for feeling all those things, then I’m insane too.”

It took a few seconds for the meaning of my words to sink in. Her eyes then widened and she gasped slightly. “R-really?”

“Really.” I struggled to keep the smile I was wearing at a normal size. It threatened to make me look like a maniac with its severity. I forced myself to calm so we could continue the conversation. “That wasn’t the only thing you’re concerned about, was it?”

She frowned slightly, and I wasn’t sure why she felt hesitant.

“What is it?” Now that I knew that she had thought of me as a potential boyfriend, I found myself a bit more forthcoming with her. This time when I began stroking her knee, it was on purpose.

She started slowly, hesitantly. “Have you ever… had the nagging feeling that you’re missing some important piece of a puzzle? When you have all these little clues that just need one more piece of information to suddenly make sense? But… you can’t just ask the person what’s going on, because… you know… you might be completely off track. The things you’ve found weird might be completely innocent and not mean anything at all. And if you’re wrong, they’ll be offended.” By the time she ended, she had sped up and was close to rambling.

“How about you tell me what you’ve noticed, and I promise I won’t be offended.” _You’re probably a lot closer to the truth than you’ll even admit to yourself_ , I added in my head. I sure as hell wasn’t about to tell Bella the truth about myself and my family and risk bringing the wrath of the Volturi down on us, but if she was going to work it out herself, I wasn’t about to discourage her. The likelihood of her guessing our true nature was miniscule, regardless.

She nodded her agreement and seemed to be gathering her thoughts once more. “There’s something different about you.”

I didn’t answer her; I just cocked my head to the side in interest.

“You don’t feel like other people. You know… when you touch someone, there’s a slight rubbery give to their skin before you hit muscle and bone. Your skin doesn’t seem to have that.”

She looked up at me, but I didn’t confirm or deny.

As though she was proving her point, she picked up my hand, the direct skin-to-skin contact making us both shudder slightly in pleasure. She poked at the back of my hand.

“See? No give. It’s really hard. And actually… colder than normal, too.” She blushed again. “Sorry. I’m not trying to insult you.”

“I know.” I nodded, smiling at her. “It’s okay. Go on.”

“Um… when we have lunch together, you seem to just pick at your food. Most teenage guys are practically animals when it comes to eating. You never seem to be hungry. Or thirsty. I know that sometimes when girls are trying not to eat much, they try to fill up on water. But you don’t seem interested in drinking, either.” She looked up at me, questioning.

“Uh huh. Anything else?”

She raised an eyebrow at my lack of denial. “Today.” She lowered her gaze.

“Today?” I placed a finger under her chin, encouraging her gently to look at me. She obliged, and I watched her eyes as she spoke.

“Today, everything is such a blur, and I don’t remember it all, but there are little bits that stood out for me. Likely because they were so out of place.”

I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“You seemed to get to me so fast. It was as if I blinked and you were there, grabbing me. You took all the impact of us falling, and while I’m in this stupid sling, you don’t have even a scratch on you. And…” She hesitated. “Afterwards, when your sisters and brother came over, the look on your face—it was just so intense. It was almost… inhuman.”

At that word, I broke her gaze and looked away. I was suddenly afraid that she would reject me when she inevitably found that missing piece of the puzzle she was searching for and realized just how inhuman I really was. Would she hate me? Would she ignore our bond and force me to leave her alone? Because I knew deep down that no matter how much it hurt, if she wanted me out of her life, I would obey her wishes. And it _would_ hurt. It would be a hundred times the pain I currently felt when I was simply across town from her. But I would bear it—even just to await the possibility of her letting me be near her again.

As I looked out the windshield, I purposefully blocked out her emotions, terrified that I’d feel disgust there.

“Jasper?” she whispered, squeezing the hand that she was still holding.

I slowly moved my head to look toward her. Instead of disgust and fear, she was emanating care and concern.

“You know this is two-way, right?” she said softly. “You can tell me anything.”

“I don’t think I can.” I really didn’t. I didn’t know if I would be allowed to tell her. In my mind, the “never tell the secret” rule should be trumped by a Pereche bond. But who knew whether the Volturi would see it my way.

She was filled with a mixture of disappointment and understanding. “Can you answer me one question though?”

“I can try.”

“ _Am_ I seeing meaning in completely innocuous things? Or am I right that there’s something different about you?”

I licked my lips unnecessarily, fighting for more time to answer. “You’re not wrong.”

Something like relief swept quickly through her.

“But, Bella…”

“Don’t worry,” she interrupted. “I’m not going to say anything. Who would I tell? You’re the only person I would tell something like this to.” She pointed out the window at the road. “We can go now that I know I’m not crazy.” She smirked at me.

I lifted her hand up and pressed my lips to the back of it impulsively. “You’re not crazy at all. Well…. maybe you’re crazy for not running away screaming, but I’ll take that.”

I drove her the rest of the way home, and when I pulled into her drive, she didn’t move straight away.

“So, whatever this thing is that makes you special…” she began. I clung to how she said I was “special,” and not “weird” or “monstrous.” “If I’ve noticed things, there’s probably a lot that you’re still hiding—trying to appear ‘normal’—right?”

I nodded slowly.

“But you can’t tell me what it is?”

I shook my head no.

“Well, Jasper Hale, maybe when we’re alone, you could drop the act. I want to know the real Jasper.”

“No, you don’t,” I protested.

“Yes, I do. I deserve to know who you are if we’re going to reassess that whole _boyfriend_ status at a future date, don’t I?”

“I guess.” My heart swelled at her mention of “boyfriend” again.

“If you really can’t tell me, I don’t care. I don’t care if we never put a label on what makes you special. But I really would like to get to know you. Just let go a little. It’ll be worth it.”

With that statement, she smiled, leaned over, and kissed me on the cheek before exiting the car.

“No give at all,” I heard her say to herself, giggling, as she walked up to the house.

 

 


	10. Chapter Ten

 

I struggled to control my own emotions as I hunted—something I desperately needed.

As I finished up in the shower, I could sense Alice waiting just outside my bedroom door. Once I was dressed, I swung the door open and looked at her expectantly.

“Since when do you wait to be invited in?”

She glared at me, but I felt no malice behind it. “I’m trying not to overstep my boundaries here. Give me some credit.”

I sighed heavily. I hated the tension that existed between us. “What can I do you for, Alice?” My body itched to leave the house and get back to Bella’s house. Alice —being Alice— knew what was on my mind.

“It’s okay, Jazz. We’ll be six minutes and then you can leave.” She perched on the edge of the bed and patted it. “Come sit.”

I cautiously obeyed, sitting close enough to breathe in her scent. While she wasn’t Bella, the smell still affected me. It was the smell of love, comfort and home. Not the passion that Bella’s scent inspired in me, but a sort of security.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” she said softly. “It’s been a tough day—a tough week.”

I nodded my agreement. “I’m okay, considering. I think so, anyway. I was so close to losing her today.” I sighed, and Alice patted my thigh comfortingly. “She’s so fragile; the smallest thing could be fatal. I don’t know what I’d do if I was unable to save her.”

I heard Alice take a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Jasper,” she whispered.

“What for?” _Has she done something I don’t know about?_

“I’m sorry that I didn’t see the accident in time. You were so insistent on making sure she was safe, and I should have taken your concerns more seriously. Maybe you were so scared because of some kind of intuition that comes with your bond. I’m not sure. But if I’d looked further into her future, just a little bit, maybe I could have prevented this from all happening.” She gazed at her hands.

I thought about her words. Could she have stopped this from happening?

“I don’t know if you could have,” I admitted after a beat. “There were so many variables. At best, you could have given us a few more seconds.”

“Those few seconds could have really helped, though,” she pointed out.

“Maybe.”

“When Bella finds out the truth about us, can you tell her how sorry I am?”

I nodded thoughtfully.

“Do you know when she’ll work it out?”

“No,” Alice sighed. “It changes a lot. Sometime after the weekend. But it could be as far as three weeks from now.”

The weekend wasn’t far away at all. “I really need to work out what I should say to her. I don’t want to scare her away.”

She shrugged. “I haven’t seen that as a problem. Once she knows, she seems to take it really well. She already has such a strong bond with you, and the fact that she works most of it out herself will really help with her acceptance.”

As we sat quietly, my knee started to jiggle.

“Go,” Alice laughed. “I’ve said my peace. Go to your girl.”

As I ran through the forest easily, the invisible rope pulling me in the right direction, I started to think that after today’s conversation, maybe I really could start to think of her as _my_ girl.

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure this is really a good idea?” Bella asked as we turned into the drive.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” I rested my right hand on her knee, and she shivered.

“What if they don’t like me?”

“They will. Even if some of them seem standoffish to start with, I know they’ll love you. Just like I….” I stopped myself before I said something I really shouldn’t after knowing the girl for barely a week.

She glanced at me, her eyebrows raised, but I ignored the unasked question.

“How far out do you live?” she asked as she watched the never-ending line of trees outside the window.

“It’s just up around this corner.” I pointed out the windshield as we rounded the corner.

“Where? There aren’t any houses here.”

I smiled over at her. “Oh really?”

I slowed down and pulled into the overgrown driveway.

“Oh, wow. You’re right. I never would have found the place by myself.” She searched through the trees for any sign of the house. “Wait. You _are_ taking me to your house, right? You’re not taking me out to the middle of nowhere to kill me?”

Chuckling, I threaded my fingers through hers. “Don’t you trust me, sweetheart?”

“Weirdly, yes.”

I brought her hand up to my lips and softly kissed the back of it. Instantly, the thumping of her heart increased, and I felt a flash of – what was that? _Holy mother of God. That was lust._

To my great relief, she didn’t reclaim her hand, allowing me to keep my hold of it until we pulled up in front of the house.

“Wow. Your house is beautiful,” she told me in her awe-filled tone staring out the window.

“I’m sure Esme will be overjoyed to hear that.”

“Esme is your– mother?”

“For all intents and purposes.”

She removed her seatbelt and turned to face me. “Before we go in there. The other day when we discussed there being something ‘different’ about you?” I nodded. “Is the same true for the rest of your family?”

I hesitated. I didn’t care about outing myself, but I felt odd outing the rest of my family along with me. But as I considered it, I found that I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her. “It is.”

“So it would be perfectly okay for you to not hold your true self back out here, correct? Like we discussed?”

“—it would be.”

“Good. Let’s start that then.” She smiled at me, a brilliant smile that could light up the whole room.

“I can start right now,” I said, grinning, and ran at vampire speed around to her side of the car to open her door. She hadn’t even realized I was gone. “Bella,” I said softly, tapping her on the shoulder.

“Oh!” she said, gasping. “You’re fast!”

“That I am. Now, may I escort you from the car?” I held out my hand for her.

Blushing, she took my hand, and I helped her out and walked her up the stairs.

The door burst open, and Alice was standing there, her hands on her hips. “You took your time. We’ve been waiting very patiently in here for you show your faces.”

Emmett scoffed from the couch. “You? Patient? I’d like to see that.”

“Shut up, you doofus,” she said lowly, a growl in her voice.

Surprised by the outburst, Bella instinctively cowered slightly behind me.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Alice didn’t mean to be so _rude_.” I looked at Alice pointedly, and she slunk back inside to join the rest of the family. I loved Alice dearly, but when it came to a choice between her feelings and Bella’s, it was a no-brainer.

Still holding her tiny, fragile hand, I led Bella into the house. The entire family –minus Edward of course—was gathered in the living room, and they rose when we entered, eager to meet the human who would be an important part of all our futures. They all realized that from now on, anywhere Bella went, I would follow.

Carlisle was the first to approach us. “Welcome to our home,” he said, carefully keeping his hands in his pockets. We were all still unsure exactly what Bella thought of us, especially since she knew that there was something different, so he was being extra cautious around her. “I see you’re better? No more sling?”

I felt her become defensive. “You said I could take it off on Friday. It’s Friday.” Her voice quavered a little as she struggled to gain confidence in a roomful of people she didn’t really know. A room full of people who she suspected might not be exactly human, in fact.

Carlisle smiled softly at her. “I did say that. And as long as you feel better, it’s fine. I’m not going to admonish you.”

Beside me, Bella relaxed at his words and his soothing tone. She glanced up at me, and I squeezed her hand reassuringly. Surprisingly, I seemed to instinctively know the exact amount of pressure to exert. It was as if my body wouldn’t allow me to hurt her. I made a mental note to mention that to Carlisle later.

Esme approached us next. She was the only member of the family who Bella hadn’t met. Emmett and Rosalie she hadn’t met officially, but they had been around on the day of the accident, so she knew who they were. Esme was the one who, to Bella, would seem like an unknown entity.

“Bella, this is our mother, Esme.” I knew that Bella already suspected that the terms mother and father were something of a ruse, but I introduced her as such out of simplicity. In many ways, Esme was just like our mother. Especially in Alice’s case; Esme was the only mother she knew.

“It’s so wonderful to meet you, Bella,” Esme said with a huge smile on her face. “Jasper can’t stop talking about you. And I can see that he wasn’t at all exaggerating when he said how beautiful you are.”

As expected, blood rushed to brighten Bella’s cheeks. I quickly checked that it hadn’t affected anyone’s bloodlust, and once I was sure they were all fine, I could concentrate on Bella and Esme once more.

“You have an amazing house,” Bella said softly.

“Thank you, dear.” Pride was bursting out of her.

I leaned down to Bella’s ear. “Esme has a thing for designing and decorating any house we live in,” I informed her.

Bella bit her lip in thought for a moment. “You’ve lived in a lot of houses, then?”

Of course she would pick up on that part of the comment. “Quite a few, yes.”

“Hmm…”

I led her over to the seating area, and we sat next to each other on one of the couches, Alice sitting on the other side of Bella. “And, of course, even though you may not have met officially, you know Emmett and Rosalie.”

Bella nodded. “Yeah. You took Jasper inside after the accident.”

Rosalie looked Bella up and down before answering. I knew that she was hesitant after hearing from Alice that eventually Bella would be changed, but I think that she accepted it wasn’t anything we decided. Fate had decided for us. It probably helped that she had seen how much pain I had been in when we went hunting away from the peninsula.

“I’m glad that you’re okay,” Rosalie told Bella, her voice quiet and surprisingly shy.

“Thanks.” Bella’s voice, on the other hand, belayed her obvious confusion and hesitancy.

I sat by quietly as the family asked Bella about her life, and she answered them as well as she could. Within minutes of us sitting down, Esme remembered that Bella was human and got her a drink and some snacks. Bella’s lips pursed when she realized that she was the only one with a drink. Another thing to add to her list of suspicions. Not that I minded. If Bella learned the truth herself, I wouldn’t be upset about it at all. I had to believe that a pereche bond would be a good enough reason to break the Volturi’s rule. And if it wasn’t? Well, of course I would fight for her. And there were few who would ever beat me in a fight.

“She’s adorable,” Esme whispered to me as Bella said her goodbyes, and I prepared to take her home.

“I know.” I smiled, glancing over at where Alice was hugging her.

I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have found her. And if all went to plan, I could become even luckier, and she might just accept me for what I was.

As we turned out onto the highway, I pointed back to our driveway. “So, do you think that you could find that turn-off if you were driving yourself?”

“Um, yeah I think so. It’s easier to notice when you know what you’re looking for.”

I smiled, sending her a small burst of happiness. “That’s great.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, we still have that date tomorrow, don’t we?”

“Uh, yes. Unless you want to cancel.”

I shook my head emphatically. “Never. I was thinking that my plan would work best if you drove out here. If you don’t want to, I can still come and pick you up. Maybe meet your father. That’s what’s expected, right? Meet a girl’s father when you take her on a date?”

She laughed, and to my ears, it sounded like bells chiming. “Maybe if this was the 19th century. But in the 21st century it’s not necessary. And regardless, Charlie is working tomorrow.”

“Okay. So—you’ll drive out here?”

She nodded.

“Brilliant. Does around 11 work for you?”

“It sounds perfect.” I could feel her happiness and some giddiness, and it reassured me that she really did want this date.

Now, I just had to hope that my plan came together perfectly.


	11. Chapter Eleven

“You know that I love you all,” I called out to the house in general, “but if you don’t get out of here right now, I’m going to have to start ripping arms off.”

“Calm down, Jazzy,” Alice chirped as she flitted down the stairs before patting my cheek affectionately. “You have plenty of time.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” I grumbled, pacing the length of the living room.

I didn’t like to use my gift indiscriminately, but I couldn’t help myself. I sent a surge of impatience throughout the house, hoping it would hurry them up.

“Jasper,” Carlisle admonished as he descended the stairs toward me. “Is that really necessary?”

A growl rumbled low in my chest. I knew that my family members were equal parts exasperated and amused by my impatience, but I just wanted them out of there.

Esme approached me as they began congregating on the front porch. She reached up and grasped the sides of my face firmly, forcing me to look down at her.

“I know this is a big day for you, Jasper. You can’t imagine how proud I am of how well you are coping with all the changes in your life.”

I smirked at her. “I can’t? Really?”

She tweaked my ear playfully. “Yes, you _can_ feel it. Fine. It’s a figure of speech, smart-aleck.”

I shrugged with a smile on my face.

“Just know,” she continued, “that no matter what happens with Bella, we are all here for you.”

Terror struck me at her words. “What?” I demanded. “Do you think that something bad is going to happen?”

“No, no,” she said soothingly. “I don’t think that. But just because you’re an empath doesn’t mean that you will always have a hold on your emotions. And just because you’ve lived for 150 years doesn’t mean that you understand everything about the world. Sometimes we all need a little bit of support. It’s a good thing, my boy.”

“I’m not a boy,” I grumbled. “But – thank you.”

“Bella is a beautiful girl—”

“More than just beautiful,” I interrupted.

“Yes. Of course you’re correct. She’s obviously perfect for you. She seems very smart, and I am sure that when she is ready to know the truth about you, she will work it out. Don’t force it. Just let that, and everything in your relationship, happen naturally.”

I nodded slowly, knowing that what she said was correct; I couldn’t force Bella to find out before she was ready. It could be too overwhelming for her.

“We’ll see you tomorrow. Have fun.”

I hugged her tightly, and only seconds after I released her, the family had left for their hunting trip, leaving me alone. My franticness of earlier had vanished, and I somehow felt peace. In only an hour, Bella would be here to spend the day with me. And most importantly, we would have no interruptions.

Collapsing on the couch, I revelled in the emotional void and allowed my own feelings to come to the fore. A smile spread across my face.

 

* * *

 

 

She was on her way – I could feel it. The ache in my chest was easing by the second. I checked that everything was perfect for what must have been the tenth time, and then moved out to the porch to wait for her.

The anticipation grew as I heard the grunting of her truck as it struggled along the highway. I made a mental note to suggest Rose take a look at it one day.

I heard her pass by our semi-concealed driveway, turn around, and slowly make her way back. The crunching of gravel reassured me that she had found the turn on her second try.

I descended the steps as she pulled the truck to a stop. At full speed, I was there to open her door.

“Bella,” I sighed once the door was open and I was flooded with her scent.

“Hi, Jasper,” she replied, blushing, as she allowed me to assist her to the ground. My body was humming from being able to touch her again.

After a second’s hesitation, I reached out and took her hand, leading her into the house. It wasn’t the first time I had held her hand, so I made the assumption that she wouldn’t object to doing it again. Especially since today was a real date. Holding hands was something humans did on dates from what I understood. She didn’t pull away, much to my delight.

“It’s quiet,” she observed, glancing around. “Is nobody else here?”

“They’re all out for the day. It’s just you and me.”

Her heart started thudding loudly, which worried me for a second until I felt her emotions. She was nervous and excited. Which I supposed was good for a first date.

I led her to the fireplace, where I had set up a rug with an opulent number of cushions to relax on. For a terrifying second, I hoped that she wouldn’t think that I was trying to seduce her. Now that I saw it with her by my side, the set-up looked somewhat like a love-nest.

Eager to allay any fears, I quickly explained. “So, my initial idea had been to take you on a picnic somewhere. That seemed adequately romantic.” She looked up at me curiously. “But since it’s January, you probably wouldn’t have been very comfortable with that.”

“Not so much,” she said with a hint of amusement in her voice.

“So I moved the location indoors.”

“It’s perfect, Jasper.” She squeezed my hand encouragingly. I watched her as she took the details in.

The fireplace was hardly ever used in our house. We obviously didn’t require one to keep warm, and since fire was the only thing that could kill us, we tended to shy away from them. But in this case, I was pleased to make an exception. I knew that the fire would be comforting to Bella, so my own fears were ignored.

“M’lady.” I gestured towards the nest with a flourish and assisted her to sit.

“Thank you, sir,” she replied with a giggle and wiggled around, making herself comfortable.

With a smile at her, I decided to keep up the gallantry. “I will return with your sustenance forthwith.”

Her answering grin was spectacular.

I was aware that she was watching me move at a faster than human speed, but I was just following her earlier instructions not to hide my true self. I returned with a tray laid with imported strawberries, sparkling grape juice, mini-quiche, and some roast chicken salad finger sandwiches.

Her eyebrows rose when I laid the spread down on the rug in front of her. “Nice.”

After settling myself on the pillows next to her, I reached behind the basket of firewood and emerged with a bunch of flowers I had picked from Esme’s garden. “And these are for you,” I told her as I presented her with them.

“They’re beautiful, Jasper.”

“Not as beautiful as you.”

She laughed. “That’s the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard.”

I ducked my head. “Sorry.”

In a move reminiscent of what I had done to her several times, her tiny finger appeared under my chin, and she forced my head back up. “Don’t be.” She looked straight into my eyes. “Everything is perfect.” She took a sip of her grape juice.

“Really?”

“Could be too much for just me, even. I would have been happy if we just hung out and watched a movie or something.”

“It’s never too much,” I insisted before smirking at her. “And thanks for ruining the surprise of the second part of our date.”

“You planned for a movie later?”

I nodded.

“Sounds perfect.” Slowly, her hand reached out until it was resting on my own.

She picked up a finger sandwich and offered it to me. “Want one?”

“No. This is all for you.”

She looked at me appraisingly before taking a bite of it herself. She seemed to be deep in thought as she chewed and swallowed.

“Jasper?” Her voice was soft.

“Yes?” I threaded my fingers through hers. I had a suspicion about what she was going to ask.

“You don’t eat at all, do you?”

I looked at her, closely, analysing both her body language and emotions. “No.”

She didn’t seem too thrown or scared, which I took as a good sign.

She held her champagne flute out towards me. “What about drink?”

I took a deep breath, letting her scent give me courage. “Nothing that you would find appetizing,” I admitted slowly.

“Hmmm….” She nodded. She was still curious, but calm. She had previously made her suspicions about my diet known, but had never asked the question outright.

I let my thumb trace over the other fingers of the hand I was still holding and watched intently as she nibbled on the items on the tray. She seemed to enjoy them all, taking alternate samples from each, which pleased me greatly. I may not have eaten human food, but I hadn’t gone completely off-track when choosing snacks for her.

“Jasper?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

She pivoted so that she was looking at me straight on and took my other hand so the fingers of both hands were interlaced. “Are you human?”

“No,” I said so softly I didn’t think a human would hear me. But apparently she did. Her heartbeat quickened for several seconds. Instead of the horror I expected to feel from her I felt understanding.

I looked up at her, questioningly. “Does that not bother you?”

Her teeth bit down on her delicate, pink lower lip. “It should. But for some reason it doesn’t. It’s almost as if I’ve always known, and my heart—or whatever it is that is drawing me to you—doesn’t care.”

“It’s your soul.”

“Huh?”

I reached up and stroked her cheek before cupping the side of her head with my hand. Seeing my hand covering the entire side of her head made me realize just how tiny she really was. “I think it’s your soul, if I understand it correctly.”

“This isn’t how most people feel about their...” She hesitated. “…Boyfriend?”

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s very rare. This pull we have toward each other? That’s our souls recognizing each other and wanting to stay together. I think. I’m still learning all the details as well.”

She pulled her hand free of mine and sat back, leaning against her arms. “Woah. That sounds serious. You’re not just playing me here?”

I shook my head once more.

She didn’t respond. She sat nibbling on the same strawberry for almost ten minutes. All I could do was sit and watch her. I didn’t move for fear that I would spook her. I just watched.

When she swallowed the last of the berry, she looked at me again. “So are you saying that you’re my soul mate?”

“Actually, yes. Humans throw that word around so frequently it’s lost its meaning, but essentially that’s who you are to me—a _true_ soul mate.”

“I probably should be more freaked out right now.”

I smiled at her. “Probably. You’re taking it better than I did.”

She looked at me curiously.

I waved her off. “A story for another time.” I’d already thrown enough at her today. She didn’t need to hear about Alice now on top of all that.

“So to summarize,” she said, shuffling herself closer toward me until our sides were touching. “You’re not human, but can’t tell me exactly what you are.”

I nodded.

“And you claim that I’m your soul mate. The fact you that know this is, I’m guessing, somewhat connected to the previous point.”

“Yes, I guess it is.” If I wasn’t a vampire, I wouldn’t know about the Romanian Kingdom and therefore wouldn’t know their stories of the Pereche.

I looked down at her hair, which was right by my shoulder. She was so sweet and perfect. “Movie?” I suggested. “I think you’ve learned enough for today.”

She nodded, and without waiting for her, I pulled her into my arms and carried her to the couch.

I left her to put a DVD into the player and when I turned back to her, I found her gazing at me intently. “Just for the record,” she said softly. “I’ll never have learned enough. Not when it’s you I’m learning about.”

I froze. If I had a functioning heart, it would have skipped a beat. I couldn’t believe she had said something so amazing. With those words I knew the truth. I knew that she didn’t care whether I was human or not. All she cared about was me. The opening credits of _Funny Girl_ played in the background and I kneeled before her, resting my hands on her knees. I was unable to break her gaze. “I feel exactly the same way,” I whispered.

I didn’t expect to feel love emanating from her. Not when we’d known each other for so little time. But it was there. A faint flicker, which I knew would just grow as time went on. It was the best feeling in the world, knowing that she felt even a fraction of what I already instinctually felt for her.

And as much as I hadn’t expected to feel that love, I never expected what she did next. She grabbed the sides of my face with her tiny hands and leaned toward me. Frozen to the spot, I watched her get closer and closer until I felt her lips graze mine. The whole world stopped. An atomic blast could have occurred outside the living room window, and I would have been none the wiser. Some Major I made. All that mattered was that she was kissing me. My eyes fell closed and my chin jutted forward, putting some pressure into kissing her back. I could feel it in every cell in my body. While touching her made my body tingle, this made my body sing. There were no words in any of the languages I knew to describe the feeling. My Pereche was kissing me. It was chaste and quick, but it was perfect.

When she pulled away, only three seconds had passed, but those three seconds had felt both longer and not long enough. I knew it sounded dramatic, but those three seconds were the culmination of everything good in my life. I had loved Alice dearly, but kissing Bella was better than anything I had ever done with Alice.

“Oh, Lord,” I muttered when both our eyes opened. The look of exaltation on her face was, I was sure, mirrored on my own.

“Wow,” she agreed. “You’re right. It can’t feel like that for everyone else.”

“Nowhere even close.”

I didn’t want to push her too fast, so I forced myself to refrain from kissing her again and pulled myself up onto the couch. She instantly snuggled into my side, sighing contentedly.

I didn’t watch any of the movie. All I could see was a replay of those three seconds over and over in my mind. Bella had to poke me in the side to get my attention when the movie ended. I hadn’t noticed that the credits were almost finished.

She was so relaxed and happy when I walked her to her truck. When we reached the driver’s door, her anticipation spiked, and I knew what she wanted me to do. I leaned down and kissed her lightly again. The feeling of our lips touching hadn’t changed. It felt just as good as when she had kissed me earlier.

“I could die a happy man right this second,” I mumbled as we pulled away.

“Please don’t,” she said with the cheeky smile, pecking me quickly on the cheek before opening the door.

She swayed slightly. “Woah. It’s like the best head rush ever.”

Not having blood in my veins, I couldn’t remember what a head rush felt like, but I trusted her analysis. “Are you sure you are okay to drive?”

“I’m great.” She rolled the window down so that she could close the door without separating us. “This has to be the best first date ever.”

“I concur.”

She started the engine. “I’ll call you,” she promised. “We still have a lot to talk about.”

I nodded. “I look forward to it.”

As she drove away, pain rippled through me, and I had to force my body to stay rooted to the spot and not follow after her.

When the noise of her truck had faded completely, I moved back inside and began to clean up the living room and kitchen. I was almost done when the tugging in my chest plateaued, so I knew she had arrived home.

The house phone rang, and chuckling, I picked it up. “When you said you’d call, I didn’t expect it to be the second you got home.”

There was silence on the other end.

“Bella?”

It wasn’t Bella. “I’m so sorry, Jasper.”

“Alice?”

“You have to get Bella.”

My body froze. “What happened? Tell me now!”

Her voice sounded like she was in danger of crying. “We were hunting near the border, and we came across Edward’s scent. We caught up to him somewhere on the Alaska/Canada border, and we talked to him. We didn’t realize what it would do.”

“What? What is ‘it’?” I demanded.

“Esme mentioned Bella. The second he heard Bella’s name, he just went feral. His eyes were black, and he sprinted off. There was no way we could catch him. Jasper, the only time I’ve seen him so filled with bloodlust was when he smelled her that first day. He’s heading toward Forks.”

I dropped the phone.


	12. Chapter Twelve

I had run half a mile before logic kicked in and I turned back. I needed a car. My plan wasn’t fully formed, but all I knew was that I needed to get Bella out of Forks. If I wanted to take her anywhere, I couldn’t just carry her. Well, I could, but she wouldn’t appreciate it.

Once I was home again, I forced myself to stop for a second. It was somewhat worrying that my natural battle instinct didn’t seem to be kicking in. I had expected, from experience, that a threat to Bella would cause the monster inside to rampage. But I was strangely calm and coherent. Could fear for Bella’s safety be rendering my incomparable innate fighting ability useless?

I made a mental calculation as I hesitated on the front porch, and worked out that, at the speed Edward could run, we had between eighty minutes and two hours. The variable would be whether he stayed on land and went around Puget Sound or cut across Vancouver Island and swam the strait. I gave myself a few seconds to finalize a plan for keeping Bella safe before zipping around the house to collect the items I’d need.

I took Carlisle’s Mercedes and was back on the road toward Bella within ninety seconds. The soft leather interior and tinted windows registered in my mind, reassuring me taking a car was the correct decision.

As I sped toward Forks, my mind began to wander. Only minutes ago I had been in heaven. I had kissed Bella. More than once. I could still feel the ghost of her lips against mine. My life could not have been more perfect. Now her life was in danger. I pressed on the gas slightly harder and glanced at my phone, hitting speed dial for Bella. She didn’t answer, even after trying four times.

Just as I was nearing the city limits, lights started flashing behind me. Chief Swan had caught me speeding. Of course it had to be him.

I smacked the steering wheel hard enough to crack it. “Fuck!”

I quickly went through my options. I could pull over and get a ticket, which would take a couple of minutes, or I could go faster and try to lose him. With how close I was to my destination, it was unlikely. And I really didn’t want Bella’s father to follow me to the house. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if he was there when Edward arrived. Not to mention how hard it would be to convince Bella to run from her pursuer if her father was there to argue with her.

The decision was easy when I thought about it rationally. I pulled over onto the gravel shoulder, stones flying as I skidded to a halt.

I rolled the window down, quickly checking there weren’t any streams of sun left in the evening light, and tapped my foot impatiently on the floor. “Come on, Chief,” I muttered as I watched through the rear view mirror at him messing around with something in the squad car. “This is only your daughter’s life on the line here.”

He didn’t seem in a hurry to get this transaction over with, and I seriously considered changing my mind and speeding away. He sauntered up to the window as if he had all the time in the world. His gun-belt made a solid clicking noise as he walked, and his leather boots squeaked a bit as they flexed.

“Doctor Cullen, do you know….” He cut himself off when he looked through the window. “You’re not Doctor Cullen.”

“No, sir.”

“You one of his kids?”

“Yes, sir. Jasper Hale. I’m incredibly sorry for driving too fast. I’ll never do it again.” Regardless of how desperate I was to get to Bella quickly, I wasn’t about to anger him by being impolite. This was really not how I had wanted to meet Bella’s father. I could just hope that it wouldn’t affect his opinion of me in the long run.

He looked at me suspiciously. “Huh.” The spark of recognition that flitted through him at my name made me wonder whether Bella had mentioned me.

Without waiting for him to ask, I handed over my licence and the registration. While he was in the squad car writing out the ticket, I tried Bella’s phone again. “Pick up, pick up, pick up. Come on, sweetheart, please pick up.”

Panic ran through me as I wondered why she wasn’t answering her phone. _What if Edward is already there?_ I did the math again in my head to reassure myself that we still had time.

My phone chirped with a text from Alice: _‘You have time if everything stays on this track. Edward is thinking about taking the long way. We’re on our way back to keep him from doing anything stupid once you’ve got Bella away. Might lose cell phone reception for a while.’_

“Here you go, son. Don’t let me catch you speeding again.” Chief Swan passed me the seventy dollar ticket.

“No, sir.”

He nodded to me and watched as I drove away. I made sure to keep exactly to thirty miles per hour all the way to Bella’s house.

“Bella! Bella! Bella!” I banged my fist on the front door desperately. She was here. I could hear her heartbeat upstairs. It stuttered when she heard the door. I considered breaking in without waiting for her to let me in. _One minute won’t make a difference_ , I told myself.

“I’m coming!” she yelled, and I could hear her uneven footsteps plodding down the stairs.

The second she opened the door, I took her in my arms. She panicked for a second until she realized it was me. “Jasper?” She was only wearing a fluffy white towel, and her hair was wet from the shower. I could guess that was why she hadn’t answered the phone.

“Sweetheart, I need you to trust me.”

“I do. But why are you here?”

I grabbed her hand and led her up the stairs. “I promise I will tell you everything you want to know about me. But right now, we need to leave.”

“Leave? Where are we going?”

“We just have to get as far away from here as possible. Pack a bag and get dressed.”

Fear ran through her. “What’s happened, Jasper?”

I went to her closet and grabbed a suitcase. When I answered her, my voice was high. “My brother, Edward, who freaked out on your first day at school? He’s coming to get you.”

I refused to look at her, wary of her modesty, but I could hear her pulling her jeans up. “To get me?”

“To kill you.”

I could hear that she had stopped moving. “K—kill me?” Her voice was wavering.

I couldn’t stand to hear her so upset. Who cared that she was only half-dressed? She needed me. I was instantly in front of her, cradling her face in my hands. I kept my eyes on her face, but I could see that she was standing there in her jeans and a pink bra. “Sweetheart, I won’t let anybody hurt you. I promise. But we need to hurry.”

She looked up at me with tears welling up in her eyes. “But what about my dad? I can’t leave him.”

“It’s not forever. As soon as it’s safe, we’ll come back.”

“I can’t leave him in danger.”

I kissed her nose. “He won’t be in danger. My family will look after him.”

“I—I—I’m…”

She was terrified. I didn’t need to be an empath to know that. “I know, baby.” I eased her fear and made her feel just enough desperation to make her move quickly. “I’ll explain everything once you’re safe.”

She nodded, sniffling, before reaching for a t-shirt and pulling it over her head.

“Passport?” I asked.

“Don’t have one,” she muttered as she grabbed her shower caddy off her dresser and threw it into the suitcase.

I mentally changed our plans again so as to not include going through Canada. “Okay. Why don’t you go downstairs and write a note to your dad saying you’ve gone to visit your mom or something. I’ll finish up here.”

She nodded distractedly and ran down the stairs. I heard her trip on the last step, but she seemed to catch herself before hitting the floor. I looked at the clock on my cell phone. It had been an hour since Alice had called me. We needed to leave pretty quickly. Even if Edward was going the long way around the Sounds, he’d be approaching Seattle by now. If he was going across the Strait, he’d be almost to Port Angeles.

At the last second, I grabbed a few novels from her bookshelf and threw them in the suitcase. Hanging off her bedpost was the green purse she had brought on our date earlier in the day. After quickly checking that her wallet was enclosed inside, I picked up both the purse and the suitcase, ran down the stairs and put them in the car.

Bella was just finishing off the very short note when I made it back to the kitchen. “We need to go, sweetheart,” I said softly, resting a hand on her shoulder.

“Okay.” She was sobbing quietly as she looked around the house. “Are you sure my dad will be okay?”

“I’m sure.” I read over her note before giving the pen back to her. “At the bottom add my cell number in case he needs to contact you.” I dictated the number while she wrote.

She sniffled again as she put the pen down, and I picked her up, cradling her to my chest, quickly trying to calm her. With all the turmoil, I could almost ignore the feeling that was evoked by her being so close to me. Almost, but not quite.

After locking the front door, I helped her into the passenger seat and took off. There was no further message from Alice, which panicked me. I hated the thought of her getting an important vision and having no cell reception. I desperately wanted to speed, but knowing that Chief Swan was out patrolling kept me to the limit. Once we were out of his jurisdiction, I would be able to floor it.

Bella sat quietly, her knees curled up to her chest, just sniffling every so often. I periodically took the edge off her fear.

I reached over to hold her hand. “You’ll be okay, sweetheart. I promise. I would die before I let anything happen to you.”

She nodded mutely. I couldn’t help myself. I sent her a little bit of hope. Maybe it would help her be okay with what was going on.

There weren’t many cars on the road. Not many people drove to Seattle at six in the evening, and the truckers were mostly done for the day, so the 101 was pretty deserted. We had just passed Bogachiel when I saw a flash of white out the window going in the opposite direction.

_Edward._

As soon as I did it, I cursed myself for thinking his name. It would have gotten his attention even if he _was_ half-crazed. I looked into the rear view mirror and there he was. Just inside the treeline, he had stopped and turned. He looked at us and, recognizing the car, started chasing. I floored the gas, but even with how fast the Mercedes could go, it wouldn’t be long before he caught us.

“He’s out there,” I whispered to Bella. Her hand tightened on mine and fear ripped through her. He was gaining on us fast, and I knew that if we just kept driving, he’d smash through the window to get to Bella. I needed to fight him off before it came to that. “No matter what you see, I need you to stay in the car with the doors and windows shut. Promise me that?” Maybe if her scent was sealed within the vehicle it would calm him down some.

“I promise.” Her voice wavered.

I looked at her as I pulled onto the shoulder. “I love you,” I whispered.

She looked at me with wide eyes. I didn’t expect her to say it back, especially in these circumstances, but I needed to say it to her before going into battle.

I was out the door and facing a snarling Edward before she could register I was gone. I had never felt much fear going into battle with Maria. I had been like a robot back then. I could face whole armies single-handedly without batting an eye. But now there was so much at stake. I was living again. I was _caring_ about my life again. So much could go wrong, and I was the most terrified I had been in my whole existence. It was almost debilitating. Keeping Bella safe was my only priority.

“Mine!” he snarled, lunging toward the car.

The best way to counter an out-of-control vampire was to use smarts. I could do that. And hopefully I wouldn’t need to go completely feral in the process. That would just scare Bella, who I knew was watching my every move. Edward was running entirely on instinct, so he would be acting like a newborn, unable to use advanced fighting techniques. His target was stationary, so the lines he ran would be easy to predict.

Darting to the left, I cut him off, dropping him to the ground. He growled and jumped back on his feet.

“You can’t have her, Edward. I won’t let you. And you know I’m a better fighter than you.”

He roared and lunged at me. He managed to get his teeth into my arm before I slammed him back into the ground.

_Damn, that hurts!_

I held him down for a few seconds as he thrashed. “She’s a person, not food. And if you can’t see that, I’m going to have to kill you.”

He might not be stronger than me or a better fighter than me, but he had speed and his mind-reading to his advantage. He managed to get out of my grip. Twisting, I grabbed his closest arm and used my momentum to make a quick bite and tear it right off.

He howled in pain as I threw it as far away as I could, not giving him the opportunity to reattach it.

The second I took to throw it, however, was a mistake. He was running, just out of my reach, toward the car. Toward Bella. I could feel Bella’s terror as she scrambled backward across the seat, but she would never be fast enough to evade him.

_Protect Bella. She’s so scared._

With a roar I launched myself at him, latching on to his leg and pulling with all my might. I heard the screeching sound of it separating from his body just as another sound I really didn’t want to hear shattered my very soul: the sound of the car window smashing.

He had made it into the car.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

 

_**Previously:**   
_

_With a roar I launched myself at him, latching on to his leg and pulling with all my might. I heard the screeching sound of it separating from his body just as another sound I really didn’t want to hear shattered my very soul: the sound of the car window smashing._

_He had made it into the car._

* * *

 

_­­­_

 “Bella!” I cried in terror.

_Try not to scare her too much. She’s human. That much fright could cause her heart to stop._

While carefully sending Edward lethargy, being careful for it not to hit Bella, I lunged for him again, grabbing him by the waist. Inside the car, Bella was screaming. I ignored the drain using my power was causing and pulled my brother back out the window only milliseconds before he had a chance to grab her. His fingernails scratched a deep gouge into the frame of the door as he attempted to hold on, but I was too strong for him.  I threw him to the ground, the momentum making me tumble down with him. He got a few swipes at me while we wrestled. I was faster to get away from him and back on my feet, though, and grabbed the leg I had just ripped off. Like his arm, I let it fly like a discus. It would take him a few minutes to find the limb and even longer to fuse it back on.

At that moment I had a choice to make. With only one leg and one arm remaining, he was a sitting duck. I could try and finish him off, or I could jump back in the car and get Bella as far away from him as possible.

Everything in me told me to kill him. He was a threat to my pereche. And I had warned Carlisle that I would kill his golden boy if it was necessary to protect Bella.

I took a step toward him but hesitated as I looked into the face of my brother. He was trying to scramble into a standing position with just one leg. His determination was quickly fading, and fear and a smidge of resignation were creeping in.

_Bella has seen enough horrific actions from you already. She doesn’t need to see you kill someone on top of that. Protect her._

“Jasper!” Bella screamed in panic. That sold it for me. Get Bella out of there and tend to her. That was my priority.

I kicked Edward in the stomach, sending him flying into a tree, which toppled from the force. “You come near her again, and I will end you,” I called at him before climbing back in the car. Before Bella, I didn’t think I would have shown such mercy.

Bella hadn’t moved from where she had scrambled to as Edward had lunged at her, and was plastered up against the driver’s door. I tapped on the window to get her attention and she moved a few inches so I could open the door without her falling out. I picked her up and cradled her in my lap as I sped away. Speed limits didn’t matter anymore. I was getting as far away as possible as quickly as possible.

She was trembling in my arms and trying not to cry. I pulled as much of her pain and fear out of her as possible as I pressed the gas right to the floor. I could smell blood, but had no idea where it was coming from. There was glass from the shattered window in her hair, and there were scratches on her face and hands, but they weren’t enough for the amount of blood I could smell.

“Bella, sweetheart, where are you hurt?”

She whimpered. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You’re bleeding.”

She held up her arm. Her shirt was ripped and there were blood stains around the wrist.

“Can you roll the sleeve up?” I asked gently, trying not to betray my fury that she had been hurt.

The wound would probably be okay without stitches, but I needed to get it bandaged as soon as possible. What worried me was how she received it. It didn’t look like it came from the glass.

“Baby, he didn’t bite you, did he?”

Her look of shock that a bite was a possibility answered my question. “No. He grabbed at me I think. It was really fast,” she said quietly.

That was a relief. No venom got in her system. It was just his nails. _Just,_ I scoffed internally. Those same nails which had torn through the metal of the car had also ripped through her flesh. Her unmarred, human flesh.

“No bruising? No broken bones?”

She took a few seconds to mentally assess her body before shaking her head.

At top speed, we were able to make it to Lake Quinault in twenty minutes. It was quiet in the village, so I pulled off the highway and parked near the lake’s edge. There was a light dusting of snow on the driftwood and sand leading to the water.

Opening the door, I sat her sideways on the driver’s seat and crouched on the ground in front of her.

“Let me wrap that up for you.”

She nodded and held out her arm.

I ripped the sleeve off my shirt, tore it into strips to act as bandages and wrapped her wrist.

“Thanks.” Her voice was emotionless.

After I placed a soft kiss on her palm, she pulled the arm back and cradled it to her chest.

“I’ll just be a few minutes, and then we can get back on the road.”

I worked quickly to clean the interior of the car of broken glass and ripped a patch of leather from the back seat. I used that and some electrical tape from the breakdown kit in the trunk to cover up the broken window. It would have to suffice until I could find us a new car.

“Your chariot awaits, my lady.” I gestured to her glass free seat with a flourish and helped her in.

Just as I was about to start the car back up, my cell phone rang.

_Alice._

“He doesn’t deserve the clemency I granted him,” I told her by way of greeting.

“I’m proud of you for not killing him. Esme thanks you.”

“Yes, well. There will be no second chances.” Although I couldn’t help thinking that _today_ was his second chance. I itched to go back and end him.

“We’re almost to Forks. You’re not coming back yet, though, are you?”

“Not a chance. I suggest you get to him before his limbs have time to fuse back together and stop him from following us. If you’re fast, you might be able to confiscate his leg. That should keep him from getting too far.”

Alice sighed. “I’ve seen him. He’s calmed down. The loss of venom will do that to you, I guess.”

I growled lowly. “I don’t care about him.”

“He’s your brother!”

“No, he’s the one who tried to kill Bella. When you do get to him, I suggest he be put to death. But know that if Carlisle decides _not_ to do that, he better be kept on a much shorter leash. We’re not coming back until he is no longer a threat.”

There was quiet on the other end of the line for several seconds. “Jasper?” Alice’s voice was soft.

“Yeah?”

“Just remember to stop in a hotel for the night. Bella needs to sleep and shower and all those human things.”

“I will.”

We hung up, and I looked across the center console at Bella. She was curled into a ball on the seat next to me, obviously upset. I artificially altered her mental state to try and cheer her up, but she still would barely look at me.

 _Despite my best efforts, I’ve scared her. How will she trust me now? How will she_ love _me now?_

“Bella? Are you okay?”

She nodded but would neither look at me nor verbalize anything. Broken hearted, I set about getting as much distance as possible between us and Edward.

 

 

I couldn’t relax until we crossed over into Idaho almost four hours later. Bella had not moved from her position and had just been staring straight ahead for hours. She had only said a dozen words since the fight, and her emotions were similar to grief, which I didn’t understand. She almost seemed like she was comatose.

I checked us in to a Holiday Inn and led her up to our suite, my hand resting comfortably on the small of her back.

It was closing in on midnight, but after she used the bathroom and changed, she didn’t go to sleep. She simply curled up into a ball, like she had in the car, and positioned herself in the corner of one of the beds. She didn’t cry, she didn’t say a word and she didn’t look at me.

In an attempt to give her a few minutes privacy, I went into the bathroom. The mirror was steamed up from her shower, so I grabbed a towel and wiped it off.

What I saw staring back at me made me somewhat understand why Bella didn’t want to look at me. I was surprised that the desk clerk had given us the room with how terrible I looked. My hair was matted and knotted and made me look like something from a black-and-white horror movie. I could have been related to the Creature from the Black Lagoon at a stretch. Dirt, grass and mud caked my clothing, and there was a quickly healing crack along my hairline on the side of my neck.

I was a mess, a terrifying mess.

I stripped my clothes off and piled them in the corner of the bathroom. They would need to be disposed of. There were stains on my pants and the sleeves of my shirt from the venom that leaked out when I severed Edward’s limbs. My arm was the most injured part of my body. Edward had gotten quite a good hold on me when he bit me, and it would definitely leave a scar. The wound was knitting itself back together, and after the hours we had spent in the car, it was almost healed, a jagged silver line crossing the myriad of other scars that marred my arm.

There were a few other gashes on my body, but they weren’t bad enough to scar. The skin hadn’t been broken, so they would be gone by morning. The healing powers of venom were impressive sometimes. I spat in my hand and rubbed the venom onto the wound to speed up the process a bit. I had received hundreds of bites like this one in my time, and I knew all the tricks.

I listened out for Bella as I stepped into the shower. There weren’t any sounds of her moving around, and her emotional state hadn’t changed since we arrived in the room. Quickly washing my body and hair, I wrapped a towel around my waist and quietly returned to the room. Grabbing a clean shirt and jeans from my duffel bag, I dressed faster than a human could. As much as I wanted Bella in every way, sexually included—I was a man, after all—I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable by parading around half-naked.

Clean and dressed, I sat in the desk chair, watching her and trying to decipher her emotions. She didn’t seem to acknowledge that I had been moving around at all.

After half an hour, I gave up and crawled onto the bed in front of her.

“Bella, sweetheart? Please talk to me.”

She continued to stare at her own knees.

“Please? I can feel you’re hurting, but I can’t help you if I don’t know why.”

As my words registered, she became confused and her forehead crinkled as she looked up at me. “What do you mean you can feel I’m hurting?” she asked with an accusatory tone.

I had promised that I would tell her everything. It seemed quiz time was starting right now. “I can feel and manipulate people’s emotions. Some of my kind have special powers, and that’s mine.”

“You’ve been manipulating me? You made me feel these things? You made me like you?”

“No! Not at all. The only times I’ve used my gift on you was when you really needed calming down. When you were freaking out, for example.”

She focused her gaze on the beige wall. “How can I trust you on this? From what I saw today, there is a lot I don’t know about you.”

My eyes widened in fear. She sounded like she wanted to leave me. “But, sweetheart, the other day you told me you didn’t care what I was. You knew there was something different about me, but it didn’t bother you. I know that what you saw today was scary, and I’m willing to tell you everything. I swear. I’ll answer whatever you want. Nothing will be left out.”

Seconds ticked by, and she didn’t say anything or move from where she was studying the paintwork.

“Please, Bella?”

She sighed heavily and turned back toward me. “What are you?”

There it was. The question that could make her run screaming from me.

“I would never hurt you. I can promise you that. I physically couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

“What are you?” she repeated, looking right at me.

I sighed. “Vampire.”


	14. Chapter Fourteen

I was on the verge of panicking, my eyes darting from Bella’s face to the rest of her body, out the window, and back to her face again. I had just revealed my biggest secret to her and she hadn’t reacted at all.

I had registered a brief spark of surprise just after I told her I was a vampire, but other than that, she had stayed perfectly calm. Her expression didn’t change and the only movement was the rise and fall of her breathing.

After fourteen breaths, she sucked her lower lip into her mouth and nibbled on the corner—a nervous habit I had seen her do a few times. Her pink tongue poked out to lick her lips, and she raised her eyes to catch mine.

“I hadn’t considered that one,” she said softly, one side of her mouth quirking up slightly. Was that amusement she was feeling? The drastic change in her mood from only minutes before concerned me slightly. Was it possible that she was losing her mind? Finding out your boyfriend is a mythical creature surely shouldn’t be a cause for amusement.

“Excuse me?”

Her voice didn’t rise in volume at all with her explanation. “I’ve spent days trying to work out what you are—especially during the drive tonight. It’s obvious you’re not human to anyone who cares to take notice, but vampire isn’t one of the things I had considered.”

“Oh.” I stretched my mental fingers out further, trying to sense any fear or hesitance in her, but found none. There should have been fear, logic told me. Fairy stories told her that vampires were dangerous, and here she was in the same room as one. In fact, she had been kissing one only a handful of hours previously. “Are you okay?”

She nodded and moved to slip under the covers of the bed. The wallump noise she made with her fist when she tried to punch the pillow into an acceptable shape juxtaposed dramatically how delicate she seemed to me. She was perfect crystalline and was surrounded by polyester fibers of the hotel’s bed linen. Linen which, in my opinion, put too much of a barrier between us.

“Are you afraid of me?” I just had to know, even though I feared for what her answer would be.

She became still as she considered her answer, her eyes shifting to the ceiling in thought.

“No, I don’t think I am,” she replied. “I should be, though, right?”

I assumed it was the pereche bond that was making her feel safe with me. Any normal person would have been petrified.

“Probably,” I admitted.

She snuggled deeper into the mattress, pulling the comforter up under her chin.

“You said I could ask you anything, right?”

“Of course.”

She nodded slowly and appeared deep in thought for a few minutes as she looked at me. She seemed to be taking in my appearance, making me feel self-conscious. I wondered if she could see the inhuman scars on my skin.

“Are you going to bed? It’s late.” She looked at the other bed across the room.

I chuckled softly. “I guess that counts as your first question about me.” She looked confused at my comment, so I hurriedly explained. “I can’t sleep. We don’t need to.”

“Oh. So you’re just planning to sit there while I sleep?”

I shrugged. “Sounds fine to me.”

Her thin, pale arm snaked out from under the blankets and she patted the bed next to her. “Come lie with me.”

My eyes widened at the prospect. She wanted me near even after all the trauma of the day? “Are you sure?”

“Well, I thought I could ask you questions until I fall asleep. It’ll be easier if I don’t have to strain to hear you.”

I couldn’t deny her logic, but even though she claimed she wasn’t afraid of me, I found it difficult to believe she would want me in the bed with her.

I moved with extra caution—both so I wouldn’t startle her and so as not to jostle her. The cheap polyester of the comforter rustled as I hesitantly reclined next to her. I was careful to not get too close and make her uncomfortable. Bond or not, she couldn’t be very happy with me for stealing her away from her home.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with her scent to help me relax. That, along with the tingle our proximity was causing, helped each cell in my body slowly release tension. I was right where I was supposed to be at that moment—next to my other half—and my body recognized that.

We both remained staring at the cracked ceiling for several long minutes. It was her turn to talk, and I wasn’t going to push her. She would begin at her own time. Instead, I focused on not allowing my fingers to inch their way closer to her skin like they wanted to do. Even in this time of stress and worry, her skin was like a siren to me.

She took a ragged breath in before she spoke. “So, vampire, huh?”

“Yup.”

“Your whole family?”

“Yes.”

“You kill people and drink their blood?”

I tensed and turned my face to look at her, resisting the urge to touch her still. “No! We don’t kill people.”

She turned her head to look at me, confused.

“My family is different,” I explained. “We try to stick to animal blood. To varying levels of success, admittedly, but we’re fairly successful.”

“Who’s the least successful?”

I sighed heavily. “Me.”

“Huh. I would have guessed Edward, given his reaction to me.”

“No. Edward hasn’t attacked a human for seventy years. Until you.”

Shock ripped through her and she pushed herself up onto one elbow to look at me better. “Wait. Seventy years? You don’t age?”

“Nope. Immortal.”

Her eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down. “So, how old are you?”

“Nineteen,” I told her, a smirk on my lips. She knew that I had purposefully misinterpreted her question. Her rolled eyes said it all.

“Oh, ha ha. Immortal humor, is it? How long have you _been_ nineteen?”

I desperately hoped my answer wouldn’t freak her out. “Since 1863.”

She nodded her head incredibly slowly. “Whoa. That’s old.”

I chuckled softly. “Compared to you, sure.”

Her arm reached out of the blankets and she playfully smacked me on the chest. Not hard enough to cause any damage to her hand, thankfully. “Compared to every human being on the planet, you mean!”

“I thought we already discussed that I’m not human,” I teased her. “Vampires can theoretically live forever, so there are many who are thousands of years old. That makes me seem rather young in comparison.”

She drifted off into her thoughtful place for a few seconds before speaking again. “So is your family all older than you?”

“Only Carlisle. They didn’t use calendars very much back then, so he’s not sure exactly when he was born, but he’s about 200 years older than me.”

“You say that so casually,” she said with a laugh.

I just shrugged. Hundreds of years didn’t seem like a big deal when you had eternity.

“So Edward hasn’t killed anyone for longer than my grandparents have been alive. But the reason we’re now here in only-God-knows-where and not at home _and_ the reason you fought with him today is because he wanted my blood?”

I shuddered, not wanting to be reminded why we were really here. We weren’t here because Bella wanted to go on a vacation with me. We were here because we were fleeing from my homicidal brother. I dreaded to think what would have happened if I had reached Edward only a second later than I did. Bella would likely be lost to me forever, and I didn’t think I could survive that.

“Yes,” I admitted. “You smell irresistibly good to him.”

“But not to you?”

“No. Never. I lo—I care about you too much to ever consider you food. With every other human, there’s always a part of me that wants to drain them. I fight it daily. But with you, that has never been an issue. You, Bella, you don’t smell like food. You smell like home.”

She smiled at me and reached out to entwine her fingers with mine. “I know what you mean,” she whispered just before a yawn escaped. I glanced over at the clock on the nightstand and noted it was almost two in the morning. As if the yawn had reminded her how tired she was, her eyelids began to droop.

“It’s okay, Bella. Sleep. We can talk more in the morning.”

“But…”

“I won’t go anywhere. I promise.”

She squeezed my fingers and sleepily rubbed her thumb across the side of my hand, and it was less than a minute before her breathing deepened and she fell into oblivion.

 

 

* * *

 

 

I was fascinated as I watched her sleep. I had listened to her slumber several times, but it was a completely different experience actually being right next to her and not in a tree outside. Her hand kept its place against my own, twitching every so often. The twitching was echoed on her eyelids after an hour of unconsciousness. It was then that she began muttering indecipherably.

It was amusing to begin with; the odd word would be understandable but no two words seemed to have anything to do with each other. How I longed to know what was going on inside her mind, to be able to see what she dreamed of.

Just before dawn, her anxiety levels spiked and she began thrashing in the bed, ripping her hand from my grasp. No amount of emotional soothing seemed to make a difference to her stress. I was considering waking her up to cease the nightmare when she jerked violently and called out clearly.

“Jasper! No! Don’t go!” Her arms flailed near her face, and I wondered whether she could hurt herself doing that.

I quickly moved closer to her and wrapped my arms around her, holding her arms tightly against her body.

“Shhh, Bella,” I whispered into her ear. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

She struggled somewhat against me grip initially, but after a few minutes of my shushing and my hand rubbing soothingly along her back, she relaxed.

Once her emotions were back to normal, I gradually released her from my iron grip. I had almost separated myself back to my original position when she spoke again, still dead asleep.

“Jasper,” she sighed and rolled over, draping her left arm and leg over my body.

I stiffened at first, but once I felt her contented state, I allowed her to stay in the position. Once my surprise had dimmed, I let my mind focus on the intimate position we were in. As much as I worried she would be upset that she had been sleeping in such a way, I couldn’t help but revel in just how right it felt. She had kissed me the previous day, sure, but to know that her subconscious mind was drawn to me just as much as I was drawn to her made me so happy. Each inch of our skin that touched felt like they were knitting together on some cellular level. My mind knew that wasn’t possible, but we had never had our skin touching without moving for such a long period of time, and the tingling sensation that always accompanied our united flesh seemed to change the longer we stayed joined.

When my mind began to wander to what it would feel like if our entire bodies were touching without clothing in the way, I had to mentally slap myself and force my thoughts in another direction before I embarrassed myself.

This was right. Being there, together, was perfect. Lying there with her body half draped over my own left me with no question as to whether we were right for each other. It was obvious. She may be human and I far from it, but even that mountain seemed conquerable. I knew just how rare this connection was, and if I could only convince Bella, then nothing could come between us. Not her humanity, not my murderous brother, not my previous marriage, nothing. If we both recognized the same goals, we could accomplish anything together.

And the only goal I cared about? Our future with her by my side. Our eternity. Nothing else mattered to me. I knew that when she awoke, things wouldn’t seem so easy. We would be tugged back into the stress of where to go, what to do and how to keep Bella as far from Edward as possible. I would have many more questions to answer from her about my life and my world. To top it all off, now that she knew about us, we had to worry about the Volturi finding out. And—I realized with a jolt—we still needed to decide how  to deal with her father. She was still technically a minor, and once he found out she had run away with me, there would be hell to pay.

But right in that moment, with Bella sleeping peacefully for a few hours and her skin in contact with my own, there was nothing but bliss. I would worry about how to proceed regarding our myriad of problems in the morning.

I leaned over, burying my nose in her severely tussled hair and breathing in her scent.

“I love you, Bella. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t hate me for bringing all this mess upon you,” I whispered into the quiet of the early morning.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

She was beautiful as she slept, holding on to me like a lifeline. Her mahogany hair fell over her face, obscuring her features from my gaze and fluttering softly as she breathed in and out. As light began to fill the hotel room and traffic built up to a constant rumble outside, her sleepy little sighs began to increase in frequency.

Not long after nine, my phone vibrated on the table across the room. I had to fight against what my body was telling me, listen to my head, and extricate myself from her grip. As I rolled away from her, pulling her delicate fingers away from my arm, I lost my balance and fell off the side of the bed. Finding myself lying on the carpeting, staring at the ceiling, I wondered if prolonged exposure to humans could be blamed for such a human-like fall. I knew that Bella was often unsteady on her feet; I just never thought it was contagious and I would be falling off a bed.

I scrambled to my feet and answered the call just before it went to voicemail.

“Yes, Alice?” I attempted to keep my voice low enough to not disturb Bella’s sleep. With a glance at her to check she was okay, I moved into the bathroom as my ex-wife began talking.

“We found him,” she told me.

“And he’s with y’all?”

“Yes.” I felt tension fly out of my body. He wasn’t chasing after us. It took a lot of pressure off. “He hadn’t moved. Even before you left, the realization of what he had almost done hit him. He’s incredibly sorry, Jasper.”

“Sorry he didn’t succeed, I bet,” I grumbled into the phone.

“No, he’s truly sorry for what he did. You know what it’s like – the monster just takes over. Have you known anyone who’s been able to resist their singer?”

“No,” I admitted. It was rare to last even a few seconds without killing a singer.

“So why are you expecting him to be any different?”

“Because it’s Bella, dammit!” My voice rose and echoed around the tiny, tiled room.

“Okay, okay.”

I listened out for any signs of Bella waking up but didn’t hear any changes. “Why are you defending him all of a sudden?”

“I’m not. I’m just trying to make you realize that this isn’t his fault. He can’t help it.”

“I thought you were on _my_ side.”

“I’m _always_ on your side. But he’s not doing this on purpose. You must know that.”

I refused to admit out loud that she was right. Anybody who threatened my Bella deserved to die.

“Look, all you need to know is that we have him and he’s under control. We’re making sure he’s feeding often enough that he won’t get hungry. We’re just trying to….” She trailed off.

“Stave off the inevitable?” I guessed.

After so long together, I could picture her body language right now. She would be sitting on the edge of her new bed, her right hand holding the phone and her forehead resting in her left hand in anguish.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “My visions aren’t any help to me right now. But—he’s going to snap eventually.”

“Yup.”

“We all know it—Esme will barely leave him alone. She wants to spend all the time we have left with him. We all know that next time, you’ll kill him.”

“I have to. We can’t run forever.”

I heard her fall back onto the comforter. “I know.”

“Tell Esme that I’m sorry, okay? I can’t just let him kill her. Try chaining him up in the basement or something – anything to keep him from running away.”

“Hmmm….” She hummed noncommittally. “I have to go anyway. Chief Swan is going to be calling you in about ten minutes. You need to wake Bella up and prepare her to talk to him. He’s pretty pissed off. He knows what you wrote in the note isn’t true.”

“Right. Thanks.” I shook my head. I had known that it was a long shot that he would just let us go without further questions.

“I’ll call again later.” She hesitated for a second. “I- I miss you,” she whispered.

I couldn’t say anything. Now that she mentioned her own feelings, I couldn’t deny that I missed her too. Her constant presence was like a security blanket for me. But my logical mind told me that admitting this would just make things worse for her. We needed to wean ourselves off each other. Alice was my past, and Bella was my future.

“Look after her,” she said with a sigh. “And we’ll do our best on this end.”

I ended the call and walked out of the bathroom.

Bella had woken while I was talking. She sat up in bed, the sheets pulled up around her, looking at me expectantly. Her hair was adorably mussed and her shirt had moved to expose her shoulder on one side. She leaned sideways, holding her injured arm close to her chest as if protecting it.

“I woke up and you were gone,” she said softly, and I could feel the small amount of fear and heartbreak that was mixed in with the relief she sent out when I returned to the room.

I was at her side instantly. “I’m sorry. My family called.” I reached up to caress her cheek, which flushed pink at the contact. Her skin was so incredibly soft it was like spun glass under my fingertips. As my hand descended, it grasped onto her wrist, turning her arm so I could see her wounds. They had stopped bleeding even before we passed Seattle, so the make-shift bandages were long gone. What were left were three angry-looking red cuts, slowly healing. If we had been able to, I would have preferred to get stitches on them, but it was encouraging that the bleeding stopped so quickly. I was sure she would be left with some impressive scarring, however. It was just another way that she would be affected by my meeting her.

Holding her arm gently with one hand, I ran my index finger of the other carefully over one of the jagged lines.

“Does that hurt?”

“No more than normal,” she replied breathily. “Actually, your cold skin feels quite nice.” She smiled up at me cheekily. “My own personal ice pack.”

“Glad to be of service.” I slowly moved to press my palm gently against the whole injured area. I was helping her, I told myself. I was making her feel less pain. It had nothing at all to do with wanting to touch her as much as possible.

I mentally slapped myself as I felt my mind clouding from the skin on skin contact. _Concentrate, Jasper._ “Your father is going to call any minute now.”

Her blissful expression turned to confusion. “How do you know that?”

I allowed my pinkie finger to rub tiny circles into her flesh. “You remember how yesterday I told you that some vampires have special powers?”

She nodded.

“Alice’s power is to see the future.”

She looked at the comforter, deep in thought. “That’s how you knew Edward was coming to kill me?”

“Exactly.”

“So, why can’t she just tell us how to fix all this crap we seem to be in?”

I sighed heavily. “Her power is complicated. She can only see things when the person has made a decision. So she won’t see that Edward is coming for you until he makes the decision to do it.”

“Weird,” she said with a sigh. “So…. My dad?”

“You know him best. What do you think would be the best thing to say to him?”

She chuckled wryly. “You’ve lived in the same town as him for almost the same cumulative time as I have. I don’t know what he’d think at all.”

I looked deep into her eyes. “He loves you, you know. So much. Having you in the same house has made him so happy.”

“You’ve felt his emotions?”

I nodded. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to reveal that I had been hanging out in trees, practically stalking the poor girl. “I just hope he doesn’t take you running away personally.”

She sighed. “Yeah, me too. How do I do that, though?”

The device in my pocket began vibrating again. “Well, looks like we don’t have time to formulate a plan.” I pulled the phone out and handed it to her. She bit her lip as she looked at it warily. “It’s hard, I know, sweetheart. You have to hurt him a bit to keep yourself safe. Keeping you safe and where Edward won’t think to look for you is the most important thing.”

She let out her breath with a sudden rush of air. “Hi, Daddy.”

I leaned against the headboard and pulled her into my arms, listening to both sides of the conversation.

“Don’t you ‘Hi, Daddy’ me, Isabella Marie.” He was pissed. Bella cringed with her whole body. I began to rub her shoulders, hoping it would help her relax somewhat. “Both when I came home from work and when I left to go fishing this morning, I thought my daughter was safely in her bed where she should be. Would you like to inform me of her true whereabouts?”

“I—I—I wanted to visit Mom. I missed her.”

“Is that right? Because I just got off a call with her. She hasn’t heard from you at all, let alone know you were coming for a visit.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise?” The inflection in her timid voice phrased the sentence as a question. I wanted to take the phone from her and fix everything. But this was her fight. And if her father heard my voice, it would just make him even more mad than he already was. No father wanted to know his baby girl had left town with a guy.

“Don’t bullshit me, Isabella. Wasn’t it your idea to come and live with me? Wasn’t this what you wanted? Please don’t tell me that after only a couple of weeks you’ve decided to go back to your mother. Do you really hate it that much here?” The thought that she didn’t want to live with him was tearing him up. But we had to be strong.

I nudged Bella with my elbow. This was our opening. He had practically given us our alibi himself. Bella frowned. I could tell she was struggling to hurt him, especially when she had confided that she really was happy in Forks.

She swallowed forcefully. “No, I don’t hate it with you. I don’t know what to say. I just had to leave. I’m safe. Can we leave it at that?”

“No! We can’t just leave it at that! You’re seventeen years old, and you have school tomorrow. And wherever you’ve gone you must have left with someone considering your truck is still parked in the driveway. Is it a boy?”

“Uh….”

His voice became somewhat muffled, as if his head was in his hands. “Please, Bella. Just tell me you’re being safe.”

“No! It’s not like that!” She blushed bright red and turned her face away from me. “I swear, Dad.”

“Sure it isn’t.” He obviously didn’t believe her at all. “Bella, just come home and we won’t mention it. No consequences, okay?”

“I can’t.”

His police radar seemed to pick up on her wording. “Can’t? Or won’t?” His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “Bella, are you being held against your will?”

“No. I’m fine. I just can’t be at home right now. You need to understand that. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Don’t make me put an APB out on you.”

“Please don’t do that, Dad. I’ll be home. I just don’t know when.”

Frustrated and despairing, Bella buried her face into my shirt.

“I don’t understand, Bella.” His voice was quiet and pleading.

“Just, please, Dad. Let me do what I need to do.”

“Tell me where you are. I can come get you.”

“I can’t tell you that.” At least that wasn’t a lie. She really couldn’t tell him. She hadn’t really been paying attention to where we went the night before.

“But….”

I felt her steeling her nerves, and a burst of determination spread through her. “I’ll call you, okay? I have to go now.”

“Bella,” he called down the line but was cut off when she disconnected the call.

Within seconds she had buried her face in my lap, sobbing. I petted her hair, shushing her as she cried softly, mumbling every so often. After about five minutes, my jeans were soaked with her tears, and I needed to do something. Bit by bit I pulled her distress away from her, sending her calm in return. And slowly she began to stop crying.

“Shhh, honey. He’ll forgive you. I promise.”

“No, he won’t,” she insisted. I upped the ante and sent her more calm.

Resting her cheek on my knee, she peered up at me. “Are you doing that?”

“Sorry. I can stop if you’d rather.”

She sniffled a few times, trying to get herself under control. “No. It’s fine. I just wanted to check. Now that I know, I think I can tell when it’s my real emotions or your manufactured ones.”

“You’re smart. Most people can’t tell, even when they do know what I can do. Are you feeling a bit better?”

“What do you think?”

“Nothing about this is easy. It’s hard to know what we should do.”

“So how _do_ you seem to just know? I couldn’t make decisions like that.”

I shrugged. “Making tactical decisions has always come naturally to me. And I’ve almost always made the right decision, as well. I guess it’s an innate skill. It’s helped make me a good fighter.”

She shuddered. “Don’t remind me of that,” she whispered. No, she really did not need to be reminded of the fight for her life I had been engaged in just yesterday.

I wrapped my arms around her and lifted her up into a sitting position. “You think you’re ready to get out of here?”

She nodded, wiping tears off her cheeks. “Where we going?”

“I don’t know exactly. It doesn’t matter where we go. All that matters is we’re going.”

She looked at me appraisingly before nodding once and disappearing into the bathroom to get ready for the day.

We wouldn’t stay in any place for long. And if I could make our trail as hard to follow as possible, that would give us a better chance.

If I wanted a future—a forever—with Bella, I would take every chance I could get.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

We were on the road quickly, leaving Coeur d’Alene behind before midday, and followed the I-90 toward Montana. We didn’t have a map, but that didn’t matter. I had a vague idea in my head of where we were, and if I couldn’t trace a route on a map, I’d be more inclined to take unexpected turns, making it harder for anyone to follow us. My priority was to make it as difficult as possible for Edward to find us when he inevitably escaped his barely competent captors.

As we passed mile marker after mile marker, Bella remained quiet. She kept staring out the passenger side window at the seemingly endless sections of green and brown. Surely these stands of pine trees looked just the same as the ones surrounding Forks, but she watched them whizz by nonetheless, deep in thought. There was a twinge of sadness in her essence, which concerned me.

I inched my hand across the center console and threaded my fingers through hers.

“What’s bothering you, sweetheart?”

“Nothing,” she replied, shaking her head.

I squeezed her fingers gently, attempting to be comforting. “You haven’t forgotten that I can feel your emotions, right? I know when something’s wrong.”

“I remember.”

“Well I’d really like to know what’s running through that pretty little head of yours. If you really don’t want to talk about it, I understand, but please know that you can tell me anything.”

She turned to look at me. Her eyes were a little bit glassy as if she was on the verge of crying. “It’s going to kill my parents if I never come home. Talking to Charlie made me realize that.”

“Never come home? We’ll get you home again.”

“Jasper, you can’t know that. Life is fragile – especially mine, it seems. People die every day. And they don’t have vampires trying to kill them. We’re on the run here, and the way I see it, there are only three possible ways this could end. Two of those endings mean I never see them again. Firstly, we stay on the run for the rest of my life, constantly trying to stay one step ahead of Edward. Or he could find us and you kill him. Or he finds us and he kills me.”

Her deductive skills were impressive. With one exception.

“You’re not going to die, I promise you.”

“You can’t know that,” she protested.

“I can. Because next time I see him, I’m not holding back. I will kill him. I’m a much better fighter than he is. I should have killed him last time. Even if he hadn’t attacked you, he wished you harm. And that is unacceptable for me.”

“He got to me last time.” She absent-mindedly ran her fingers over her sweater-covered forearm where the impressive scars sat.

I shook my head sharply. “I was holding back. I didn’t want to scare you with how much of a monster I can be. If he comes near you again, he’s ashes. It’s as simple as that.”

“Ashes?” she asked with curiosity.

I sighed and explained to her just how a vampire was killed. At this point, I guessed since she had already seen us fighting, a simple explanation wouldn’t scare her too much.

“So…. Ashes,” she confirmed, nodding.

“Ashes.”

She turned to look back out the window again, and I concentrated on the road for a few minutes while she digested the new information.

“He could still get to me though. You’re all super-fast, right? So if you were distracted for just a second or even on the other side of the room, it would be enough for him to grab me. Even if he didn’t kill me, I could be hurt pretty bad. I could be so easily paralyzed or have head trauma just from him touching me wrong.”

My whole body vibrated in anger at the thought of her being hurt. Well—hurt _again_. The wounds on her arm, while relatively superficial, were already enough to confirm the grave danger she was in. _Would_ be in until he was dead.

I took my hand back from hers and gripped both hands on the already cracked steering wheel before speaking softly. “If you are critically injured, I wouldn’t hesitate to change you.”

“Change me?”

“Into a vampire. The change would heal any wounds you had. As long as your heart is still beating, there’s a good chance you’ll come back from anything.”

“Woah. Vampire. Okay.”

“I don’t plan to let him get close enough for that to be needed right now, but it is a back-up plan.”

She nodded absently, but she was tense and concerned.

“Are you okay with that, Bella? I can’t live without you. I won’t let you die. And if that means I have to change you to keep you around, I’m more than willing to do it.”

“Yeah, if it’s between that and dying there isn’t a lot of choice, is there?”

“I can’t lose you, Bella.”

“Because of this whole soul mate thing?”

I nodded. “Exactly. It hurts to be away from you. Even being at my house while you were at your own caused me extreme pain. I don’t want to imagine what it would be like if you were gone.”

My body’s shaking increased dramatically just from saying the words. Bella noticed my agitation and reached over to rest her hand on my knee. Almost instantly, I calmed. It still amazed me how much influence she had over my involuntary reactions. “Shhhh. It’s okay. I’m here,” she whispered.

To my great pleasure, she didn’t remove her hand from my thigh once I had calmed down. She just reached over and turned the radio on, pressing play on the CD without checking what Carlisle had last been listening to. Wagner came through the speakers, and she turned the volume down to the point she would only just be able to hear it.

Leaning back in her seat, she let the music wash over her and relaxed, periodically stroking my leg with her tiny fingers as we drove.

 

* * *

 

 

We pulled in to Butte, Montana, mid-afternoon. Gray skies greeted us, making us Forks residents feel right at home. The feeling around the mining town seemed to reflect the skies, and from the architecture and the odd boarded-up building, I guessed that the town’s hay-day had been many decades ago. I briefly wished I had brought a camera; Emmett would get a kick out of the ‘Welcome to Butte’ sign.

I took Bella to Quiznos to get her some lunch, and as I watched her eat her sandwich ravenously, I reminded myself that she needed to stop to eat more often. Humans ate three times a day. I had to remember that. It would, however, make our journey longer.

“So, are we staying here?” Bella asked between sips of her Coke.

“Nope. Do you think you can handle another three or four hours of driving? I don’t feel comfortable still being so close to Forks and still being on a route so direct from Washington.”

She nodded. “Yeah, sure. Where are you thinking of going? What’s near here? Bozeman? Boise?”

“Good geographical knowledge. Have you got a map hidden somewhere around here?”

She smirked. “I aced U.S. Geography.”

A grin spread across my face. “I can tell you we won’t be going to either of those places. And as much as I’d like to get us back on the road, I have some tactical things to do before we leave.”

She frowned at me. “Tactical things?”

“Yes.”

“Are you planning to tell me exactly what?”

I shrugged with a wide smile and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek.

“You’re weird. You know that, right?” She stood up to use the restroom, running her hand through my hair as she passed by my chair, causing me to shiver with pleasure.

I filled the tank with gas and drove us over to a used car yard, and while Bella waited in the warmth of the car, I went in and bought us an older model Toyota sedan using some of the cash I had grabbed before leaving home. The salesman was so happy about such an easy sale it was easy to dazzle him into accepting a fake name and minimizing the paper trail.

“Your plan was to buy a new car,” Bella stated when I opened her door.

“Part of it.” I loaded our few pieces of luggage into the new vehicle and handed her the keys. “Can you drive it? Just follow me. We won’t be going far.”

“Okay.” She was unsure and hesitant.

When she stepped out of the Mercedes, I grabbed her hips and pulled her towards me, letting my scent wash over her. “Trust me.”

“I do,” she told me, vaguely dazed, before she stood up on her tip-toes and kissed me quickly on the lips.

‘ _Progress,’_ I told myself. She wouldn’t have kissed me if she was mad at me for basically kidnapping her. I could still feel my mouth tingling as she stepped away and got into the Toyota.

She followed me south through the town until we got to the city limits. Two hundred yards down the highway was exactly what I was looking for.

I pulled over near the hitchhiker and saw Bella pull up behind me. Since Bella didn’t know what I was doing, she was anxious. She probably thought I was going to kill him or something. Just like the hitchhiker himself seemed to think. I sent both of them some calm and trust.

I sauntered over to the hitchhiker, hoping I could pull off acting like a local, and signaled Bella to stay in the car.

“Going to Los Angeles, are ya?” I motioned toward the cardboard sign he was holding.

“Yeah….” He was still wary, so I upped the amount of trust I was pushing at him. “Trying to, anyway.”

“I can help. We don’t need two cars, so you can have it if you want.” I pointed at the Mercedes. “It’s pretty beat up on the inside and missing a window, so it’ll be more hassle than it’s worth to try and sell it. Got a full tank and everything.”

He looked at me suspiciously. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. You need a car. We need to get rid of one.”

“It stolen?”

“No. I can put your name on the ownership papers and everything. I just have two requests.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t take it through a car wash or anything. I don’t want it washed.” The longer our scent could stay on it, the better. “And drive it as far as you can. You’re going to L.A. That’s perfect. Just take it south. Show the poor girl a bit more of the country than what she’s seen with us.”

“Okay….”

“Trust me, man. This is a good deal. You can just dump it somewhere when you’re done if you want. Or try and sell it. Whatever.”

“I still don’t get why you’re doing this.”

I pointed back at Bella sitting in the other car. “My girl just wanted to do something nice for someone. You know—pay it forward or some shit. She’s on this ‘helping out strangers’ kick at the moment. And you know how it is with a girl—what she says goes.”

He checked Bella out for a few seconds longer than I would have liked. If he wasn’t really doing us a favor, I would have ripped his head off for looking at her like that. She belonged to _me._ Nobody else.

“Okay. Sounds like a good deal.” He nodded and shook my hand. The frigid air temperature disguised my cold skin.

I forged Carlisle’s signature on the ownership papers and he took off, looking back at us, confused, a few times as he departed.

Bella moved over to the passenger’s seat as I climbed in to drive the smaller car.

“I don’t get it.”

“Well,” I explained, “now if Edward tries to follow the scent of that car, he’s going to end up in Utah or California or somewhere.” I found the next turning zone, and changed into the north-bound lanes. “Meantime, we’re heading in the exact opposite direction.”

She grinned. “My man is so smart.”

I glanced over at her, taking in her smug expression. “Your man?”

“Well, yeah. If you really are my soul mate I get to call you mine, right?”

“Any time you like, sweetheart. Does that mean I can call you mine?”

 She seemed to consider the request for a minute before smiling shyly at me. “I think that would be fair. We had already mentioned the potential ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ tags. Belonging to each other is just a bit more than that, right?”

Energy flowed through me. “Mine,” I sighed happily. “My mate. My Pereche.”

“Pereche?”

“Yes. _Sufletul Pereche_. It’s what we call it. It’s the ultimate kind of mate. Perfect in every way. Two halves of the same whole, basically.”

“Okay.” Her emotions were calm and accepting.

“Not overwhelmed by that?”

“Nope. I’m your mate. I guess. It’s a weird word.”

“Not something humans use a lot.”

“Exactly.”

I couldn’t take the smile off my face. “Mine,” I repeated with a bit of a growl in my voice.

She wasn’t put off by the growling. “Yep. All yours.”

My heart soared. Even with all the stress I had put her through in the last few days, she wasn’t hesitant about being with me. She was accepting that we belonged together completely. Even though she wouldn’t feel the extent of the bond until she was eventually turned—which hopefully wouldn’t happen for quite a while—she already believed me. She wasn’t fighting it. And that made me incredibly happy.

Almost happy enough to make me forget about the threat to her safety.

Almost.

“Tell me more about this _Pereche_ business,” she requested as she rested her head against the window of our new car.

I was happy to oblige.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

I spent the night on a dust-ridden bed in another anonymous motel with Bella curled up next to me. Both her hands gripped my shirt tightly as she dreamed. When I heard my name being whispered in her unconscious state, I could only hope it was a good thing.

I worried that even with our bond she would begin to associate me with fear and trauma. It was a legitimate fear, I thought – since I had come into her life, it had been filled with drama: from Edward’s reaction on her first day, to almost being killed by a car, and now running for her life. I wanted there to be more happy memories of our time together to cancel out the bad ones. An idea slowly began to take shape in my mind as her heart rate began to increase, signaling her impending waking.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” I greeted her as her eyes fluttered open.

“Morning.” Her voice was croaky from disuse and she covered her mouth with her hand before clearing her throat.

I leaned forward and kissed her dusky pink lips, which were soft and pliable beneath my own. Just as she relaxed, however, she pulled back.

“I probably have terrible breath,” she protested. “This will be better once I’ve brushed my teeth.”

“I think you smell great. I want to taste _you_ not your toothpaste.”

“How do I know whether you’re just saying that so I’ll kiss you again, or if you’re telling the truth?”

“Scouts’ Honor. It’s the truth.”

She slapped me playfully. “You were never a Boy Scout. They weren’t even invented when you were a boy.”

“You caught me,” I laughed.

Before she could protest further, I pulled her back against me and kissed her soundly again. She truly did taste better this way than if she had brushed. That was likely specific to the vampire/human thing though. I heard humans didn’t appreciate ‘morning breath.’ 

To prove my point, once she was comfortable with the kissing, I pried her lips open with my tongue and let it creep slowly into her mouth. She didn’t protest at all, and she tasted divine. Her eyes fell closed, her emotions filled with pleasure, and her blood rushed faster through her veins.

I felt her soft tongue hesitantly moving against mine, but when it began to push forward, I pulled back reluctantly.

“My teeth are really sharp and you could cut yourself very easily on them,” I explained between kisses to her forehead and down her hairline. “To avoid any accidents, it’s probably best if your tongue doesn’t get too close to them. I don’t know exactly what would happen, but it would surely hurt you if you cut yourself.”

“That seems rather one-sided.”

“Maybe. We know by now that I’m very protective of you.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” She smiled at me and traced along my cheek and chin with a finger. “Excuse me. I need to clean up.”

I watched her leave until the door closed behind her, and then flopped onto my back, staring at the ceiling. I was walking a fine line and knew I had to be careful with her. It would take practice for both of us to learn where the boundaries were in our physical relationship. I needed to keep careful control of my actions to ensure her safety. But I wasn’t stupid enough to think we could be in such close quarters constantly and not experiment a little bit. We were both teenagers—physically—and couldn’t be expected to remain completely chaste when confronted with our mate.

I listened carefully to her movements in the bathroom. Her breathing was heavy and heart rate was slightly elevated still. I heard her slap both her hands on the vanity and guessed she was looking in the mirror.

“Oh, God,” she said to herself with a moan. I couldn’t help but be pleased she was affected by my kisses.

She didn’t make a move for several minutes, but then I heard her sigh. This was followed by the sound of her clothes hitting the floor and the shower turning on. I tried not to imagine how she looked at that moment – the thought wouldn’t be good for me right now.

By the time she returned to the room I had dressed.

“So, do you know where we’re going today?” she asked as she brushed out her hair, her scent wafting around the room.

“Actually, I thought we’d change it up today.”

She looked at me, curious.

“I thought we could take advantage of this town, and I could take you on our second official date. If that pleases you, of course.”

She blushed lightly and put down her brush. “Of course that would please me. You don’t think we need to be driving farther away?”

“No, I thought that if we purchased you a pillow, you could comfortably sleep in the car tonight while I drive. The roads will be quieter during the night, and it’s not like I need to sleep.”

She readily agreed.

 

* * *

 

 

“So, where are we going?” A foot of snow had accumulated around the car, and I was walking around the vehicle kicking the build-up away.

I had flipped through some brochures in the lobby earlier as Bella had been getting a pre-packaged muffin from the vending machine. “Well, most of the activities around here are outdoors and it’s too cold for that, but I’ve found a couple of things in honor of the first place we met.”

“Lunch?”

“No, history class.”

“Oh! Right. I knew that.”

I thought it was very gentlemanly of me to assist her into the car—we _were_ on a date, after all—but Bella just rolled her eyes at my efforts. Some girls just didn’t appreciate a good man when they had one.

Once we made it to the Visitors’ Center, we had a few minutes to wait for our tour to begin. I tried to take advantage of the situation by pressing Bella up against the wall and peppering her face with kisses. The fingers of both our hands were intertwined, which was the only way to stop my hands from wandering up her hips and further up her torso.

“Jasper, stop it,” she hissed when my mouth descended to her neck. “We’re in public.”

“There’s nobody around.” I resumed my attack on her smooth, white neck. I could see and feel the blood flowing only millimeters from my lips, but it wasn’t affecting me at all. It could have been liquid gold for all I cared—I wasn’t interested one bit. Now, the woman who had sold us our tickets earlier, she was a different story. I could have easily drained her if I wasn’t committed to this lifestyle.

I made a mental note to hunt sometime very soon.

“That’s not the point,” Bella continued. “Anybody could walk in here at any time.” To prove her point, the little bell jangled above the door as an older couple walked in.

I reluctantly pulled away from her and leaned casually against the wall next to her, keeping one hand entwined with hers.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Miss Swan. I’m being the perfect gentleman over here.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Sure you are.”

I knew I was acting somewhat like a Casanova, but I had hormones too. And those hormones were driving me wild. It had been weeks since I had had sex. That was a really long time for me. As much as I didn’t want to view Bella in a lascivious manner, it was difficult to not want to be more intimate with my true mate. If we had met when both of us were vampires, I am sure we wouldn’t have come out of the bedroom for weeks.

Our tour guide finally began talking and led us down a narrow stairway. “Over a hundred years ago, illicit businesses began operating here underground—a good way for the more genteel townsfolk to turn a blind eye to the less savory parts of society. There were saloons, brothels, opium dens… quite the thriving community. Then when the fire of 1904 destroyed the whole above-ground town, many legitimate businesses relocated to underground premises so they could continue operating without having to wait for the town to be rebuilt. This brought legitimacy to the underground mall and cleaned it up a bit.”

Bella wasn’t feeling bored, which I was greatly pleased about. She was actually interested in the recreated stores and tableaux. I couldn’t help but be thrilled that we seemed to share similar interests. Because this type of exhibit was right up my alley. Her interest here made me feel a bit better about the other activity I had planned for later.

“I wish we had a camera. This stuff is awesome,” Bella whispered. She was watching the other couple, who were very snap happy, ahead of us as we wandered from store to store.

“I can run back up to the gift shop and buy you a disposable if you want.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll survive.” She wrapped her arms around one of mine as if she were hugging it. It felt great having her snuggled up against my side as we explored.

“Did you like it?” I asked her as we ascended back to street level.

“Oh, yes.” She nodded enthusiastically. “It’s fascinating. When you see the little town, it looks so normal and innocuous. Then you see practically a whole other town is hidden under it.”

I smiled at her and kissed the side of her head. “Maybe when all this is over, I can take you to the one in Seattle.”

“There’s something like this there?”

“Well, it’s quite different, but the whole ‘underground city’ thing is there. What was your favorite part of this one?”

“Don’t think badly of me,” she warned.

“Why would I think badly of you?”

She blushed. “I liked the bordello best. It was so fancy. All those beautiful fabrics and furniture. It was like being in a rich person’s house.”

“That’s not a bad thing to admit. I liked it too.”

“I just wonder if that was an accurate recreation. You don’t think of whorehouses as being like that.”

I pulled her closer to me. “I would guess it was pretty accurate. There were a wide range of levels of brothel—obviously depending on how much the girls cost. Some were extremely up-market—more than this one, even.”

Bella pulled her head back to look me directly in the face.

“You sound very knowledgeable on the subject. Like you’ve been to a lot of them.”

I checked her emotions, and she seemed a little bit amused by the revelation, so I didn’t bother to deny it. “I’ll admit to having frequented a few houses of disrepute during my time.” I lowered my voice to stop anyone overhearing us. “Before my change, that is.”

She still didn’t seem angry at my admission.

“It was common back then,” I reminded her. “In fact, my father took me to my first one when I was sixteen. He insisted I needed to learn about women from the experts.”

Bella laughed out loud. “So, you’re a bit of an expert, then?”

I shrugged casually. “I wouldn’t call myself an expert. Please don’t hold this against me, but you need to remember that I was around for over 100 years before you were even born.”

She smiled and pecked me on the cheek. “It’s okay, Jasper. When you told me how old you were it was pretty obvious that you’re not exactly a virgin. It’s fine. As long as you’re not with anyone while you’re with me, I can accept it.”

I was filled with relief. I wouldn’t want to have to spend the rest of my existence trying to get her to forgive me. And it sounded like she wouldn’t be too mad when she’d find out about Alice. Something I would have to find the courage to tell her. Sometime very soon. I just couldn’t work out how to bring the subject up.

I held her hand tightly as I guided her out to the car, having to grab at her waist twice during the short journey when she slipped on patches of ice. Her boots, while good for the rain in Forks, weren’t as useful in the snow. There wasn’t enough tread on them. I wondered if I should buy her a new pair.

“So, are we leaving now?” she asked as we pulled down the street.

“No. We’re still on our date, you know. I have more to show you.”

I had memorized the map of the town while she was in the shower, so I drove confidently back to the edge of town we had passed on our way in, making a quick detour into the mall to buy Bella a pillow. I threw a blanket in as well.

“More history,” I explained to her as I led her into the museum.

It was small, which was to be expected, but as part of the Montana Dinosaur Trail, had fossils and dinosaur skeletons alongside the historical documents, photos and turn-of-the-century dioramas. It was almost deserted—not many tourists came out at this time of year—so I didn’t worry about being overheard when I pointed out some of the everyday items that were on show which I had used as a boy.

“As much as the dresses were pretty and all, I don’t think I could have handled living back then,” Bella admitted.

“Why not?”

“Corsets? No running water? Being considered property? No thanks.”

“I guess,” I mused, “if you didn’t know any different, you didn’t question it. It was normal.”

“I guess.”

“And anyway, you don’t seem to object when I say that you’re mine.” I smirked at her and leaned in to nuzzle against her neck, breathing in her scent.

“That’s different. I have a choice.”

“For what it’s worth, I think you would have fit in well in my time. You have the right temperament to be quite a great lady.”

“I can’t tell if that’s really a compliment or not.”

“It is. Trust me.”

She nodded without answering and we finished wandering the exhibits.

“Where to now, _my_ Jasper?”

“Well, a date isn’t complete without a meal, is it?”

She shut the car door as she climbed in and looked over at me. “It probably is when one of the participants doesn’t eat.”

“Regardless, I intend to wine and dine you. Or, well, just dine you.”

It was a late lunch, but the restaurant was still fairly busy. Bella just chose a chicken salad and garlic bread fingers, and I ordered some spaghetti, which would be easy to cut up and move around to look like I’d eaten some. As it was, I managed to convince Bella to eat a few bites of the noodles, and the look of pleasure on her face when she tasted the sauce made her look gorgeous. I restrained myself from moving around the table to her.

Bella sighed happily as I paid the bill and we left the restaurant with my arm around her shoulder.

“This was nice.”

“It was,” I agreed. “Is there anything you want before we get on the road?”

“No. I’ll just get a bottle of water at the gas station.”

I made sure she was comfortable in her seat with the pillow against the door to rest her head on and hoped that she would be able to sleep once it got dark.

We drove out of town and up a small rise.

“Stop!” Bella called suddenly, and I pulled over to the side of the road.

“What is it, sweetheart? Did we forget something?”

“No,” she told me with a grin. “But we need to finish our date.”

She grabbed her coat and tugged it on as she stepped out on the grassy verge. I quickly followed her and met her behind the car, confused as to what she meant. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be many cars around at this time of the afternoon.

“Come here,” she said softly.

I leaned against the trunk and she settled herself into my arms, looking out to where we came. The town slightly below us looked beautiful blanketed in snow. The day was relatively clear, so we could see the sun setting directly in front of us, and lights were coming on in the houses.

“Thank you, Jasper,” she said without turning to look at me. She just continued to watch the sun set, its rays making the covering of white on the distant farms sparkle. I could tell that my face and hands—the only parts of me not covered—would be shimmering too. In the low light, it wasn’t enough to alert passersby, but the sunset was directly in our eyes, and Bella would notice if she cared to turn around.

“What for?”

“This has been a great day. It made me forget for a while just why we’re here in the first place. Both of our dates have been wonderful.”

“It’s all for you, Bella,” I whispered just loud enough for her to hear. “I just want you to be safe and happy.”

“I am.”

I chuckled quietly. “I think you’ve been pretty much in danger since the second our paths crossed, actually.”

“But it doesn’t matter. I feel safe with you. I know that you wouldn’t let anything happen to me. And even if I do get hurt, I’d be happy that I just got to spend this time with you. Like… it’s all worth it.”

I didn’t bother correcting her. She knew that I wouldn’t let her get hurt, and that I would say that losing her would _never_ be worth it. She squeezed my arms tighter around her waist as the last rays of sunlight spread across the land, and the sky changed slowly from pink to a darker gray.

I felt and heard the deep, shuddering breath that she took as she turned to look at me. Her eyes were glazed, but she wasn’t crying. I didn’t know why she looked like she was upset when her emotions told me that she was incredibly happy and content. I ignored the other emotion I felt coming from her. I had to be reading it incorrectly.

She reached up and stroked my cheek with the backs of her fingers. The other hand found its way behind my head and played with the ends of my hair.

“Jasper?” She suddenly seemed somewhat uncertain. As if she was scared of what she wanted to say to me.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

Her hair whipped up in the wind, flying around her face, and I collected it into a bunch and held it down, resting my wrists carefully on her shoulders.

I gazed down at her. The light in the sky was fading quickly and her face was aglow, pink from the reflection of the taillights next to us. She was so incredibly beautiful. The view in front of us paled in comparison to how perfect she was.

She bit her lip, looking down for a second, before mentally steeling herself and looking back up at me.

“I—I—.” She took a deep breath. “I love you, Jasper.”

If vampires could go into shock, I would have worried that was what was happening to me. It took a second for me to comprehend what she had just told me, but then absolute joy flooded through me. She had really said it. She loved me.

I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face. I couldn’t even remember to hide my teeth.

“I love you, too, Bella. So much you can’t imagine.”

“R- really?”

“Completely.”

I leaned down and held the back of her head in my hands. I held it like it was the most precious thing in the world. Which, to me, it was. Her head contained everything that made her the Bella I knew. Everything that made me love her.

I took her lips with my own and kissed her softly. It was Bella who pushed more forcefully, and she quickly opened her lips to me.

Absolute bliss. That is what this was. I was kissing the girl I loved. The girl who loved me. The girl for whom I would go to the ends of the earth. Nothing else mattered.

She was mine.

And she loved me.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

Bella was falling in and out of sleep as I drove through Montana toward Bismarck. I kept the radio soft enough to not disturb her and listened to my love’s steady breathing as I maneuvered the long and gloomy roads. Around two in the morning, I pulled onto an access road to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I parked just far enough off the highway so as not be spotted. The access road was closed due to the inclement weather, and I could see road barriers just up ahead.

“Bella, honey.” I jostled her softly to rouse her. “You need to wake up for a while.”

“Mwumph?”

I kissed a trail from her cheek down her jawline and let my hand rest on her thigh.

“Mmmm,” she moaned, and her eyelids fluttered open.

“I need you to be awake, sweetheart.”

“Where are we?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

I moved back to my own seat. “North Dakota.”

She looked out the window, confused. “It’s the middle of the night. Why am I awake?”

“I need to hunt. I’ll be as fast as I can. I really don’t want to leave you alone, but I can’t hold off much longer.”

She nodded and felt a twinge of nervousness.

“And this is why I need you awake. I want you to be vigilant. If you see anything unusual, if anyone—on foot or in a car—comes near you, blast the horn. I’ll stay close enough to hear it, and I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

 I took my phone out of my pocket, checked that we had reception, and passed it to her. “If Alice calls, answer it. If she has any information for us, blast the horn. If _anything_ is odd, or scares you, blast the horn. Don’t hesitate. _Anything._ ”

She looked up at me, frowning. “Sh—should I be worried?”

“No, sweetheart. I’m just being extra-cautious. And you need to feel that you’re not abandoned in the middle of nowhere. One honk and I’ll be back, okay?”

She patted my leg. “I’ll be fine. Go hunt.”

I leaned over, kissed her quickly, and put my hand on the door handle. “I love you.” I wondered when the novelty of being able to say that would wear off.

“I love you, too.” She sounded a little bit patronizing. “Go.”

I turned the radio up loud enough to stop her falling back to sleep and was out the door.

I figured there were some buffalo somewhere around here but couldn’t smell them anywhere within a couple of miles. There were, however, a lot of elk. Enough that they could be considered overpopulated. I decided to help out with that problem and sprinted off.

 

* * *

 

 

Bella managed to sleep another couple of hours before I stopped driving. We had gone all the way to Bismarck and driven around the city for a bit, before backtracking and changing our course to north.

She woke when I slowed down as we pulled into Rugby. We were close to the Canadian border, and my mind worked quickly, changing my plan. Changing my mind often would help us if Alice didn’t manage to keep her visions hidden from Edward.

“What time is it?” Bella asked, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

“Just after seven. Want some breakfast?”

“I can go without. I’m not horrendously hungry.” As if on cue, her stomach grumbled.

I chuckled. “Don’t fib about these things, sweetheart. I ate earlier. Now it’s your turn. Don’t sacrifice your comfort.”

I took her into a small diner and urged her to order pancakes with all the fixin’s. She followed it with strong coffee, proving that she didn’t get enough sleep during her night in the car.

When she’d finished eating, I checked us into a hotel. The sun had risen and there was only a small amount of cloud cover—not enough for me to be able to walk around outside without attracting attention.

In our small hotel room, we each took a shower. When she finished drying her hair, she stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, clearly unsure what she should be doing.

“Sleep,” I told her.

“I’m not tired.”

“Well, that’s not true.”

“Okay, I’m tired, but I just had two cups of coffee. So I won’t be able to sleep anytime soon.”

I picked her up, carried her to the bed, and lay down next to her. “We can’t leave here until the sun sets, so you can get at least a little sleep during the day. We can—I don’t know—watch some TV. Talk. Whatever you like.”

“Let’s talk,” she suggested.

“What about?”

“I want to know about you, Jasper. I know how I feel about you, but I don’t really know anything about your history. You’ve lived one hundred and fifty odd years. You must have a lot of stories.”

I considered what I could tell her. I wanted her to know everything about me but didn’t want to scare her. “Most of the stories from before I met the Cullens aren’t very nice.”

“I’m a big girl, Jasper. I saw you rip limbs off your brother. I think I can handle a few scary stories.”

Sighing, I pulled her against my chest so that we were spooning. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see her face when she realized how much of a monster I had been in the past. But she wanted to know about me, and I couldn’t deny her. So I began the long story.

“You already know I grew up in Texas. I was too young when the war broke out, but I was desperate to fight those damn Northerners who thought they could tell us how to live our lives….”

 

* * *

 

 

She fell asleep as I was explaining about helping Peter and Charlotte escape. Her deep, even breathing and complete relaxation made me stop talking so as not to disturb her.

It was with both relief and frustration that I realized I had missed yet another opportunity to tell her about my relationship with Alice. She really needed to know, but it wasn’t something that just came up easily in conversation. Oh, who was I kidding? …I was scared to tell her. I was terrified that a tiny whip of a girl would be mad at me. I was a coward when it came to her.

“Are you going to be okay to travel again tonight?” I asked her when she woke up a few hours later.

“Of course.”

“Are you sure? If you’re too tired, we can stay here so you can get some more sleep.”

“But you want to keep going?”

I frowned. “Well, I do, but you come first. If you need more sleep we can stay here.”

“I can sleep tomorrow. Let’s keep moving.”

I stood and kissed her on the top of her head. “Okay. You stay here with our bags. I’m going to sell our car.”

“We’ve only had it for forty-eight hours!” she protested.

“Trust me.”

“I do.”

I passed her the phone. “Give your parents a call or something to reassure them you’re fine. Order some room service. I’ll be back in half an hour or so.”

I started to walk away, but she pulled me back by the hem of my shirt. “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

Reaching up, she pulled my head down and kissed me – chaste, but forceful. “I love you.”

I couldn’t help grinning at her. “I can’t explain how much I love hearing that from you. I love you too.”

 

* * *

 

 

When I returned, a few thousand more dollars in my hand, Bella was sitting on the bed, flicking through channels, bored.

I opened up her bag and looked through it quickly.

“What’re you doing?”

I pulled out the warmest sweater I could find. “I need you to dress as warmly as possible. Lots of layers. Hat, gloves, scarf; everything you can find. It’s going to be close to zero degrees out there.”

“Uh…. Why do I need all these clothes?”

“We’re getting out of here.”

She laughed. “And we’re walking or something?”

I nodded, smirking. “That’s right.”

“Excuse me?”

“If we want to stay in relatively unpopulated areas, we need to go north, not east. You don’t have a passport, so we can’t just drive over the border. So I’m going to run, carrying you.”

She stared at me, shocked. She hadn’t made any move toward getting dressed. “You’re insane.”

“It’s unexpected. And when you’re on the run, you can’t do what is expected.”

“No. You’re just insane.”

I shrugged. “Possibly. Love makes you do stupid things.”

“Don’t I know it,” she grumbled, picking up the sweater.

As I watched her add more clothing, I wondered about that comment. Did she think that it was because of her relationship with me that we were on the run? Did she wish it were otherwise? What would her life be like if she hadn’t met me?

I shuddered when I realized if she hadn’t been my pereche, she would most likely be dead by now. Without my protection, Edward would have killed her by now. Maybe not that first day in the cafeteria but definitely when he escaped and ran back from Alaska.

I felt a cold chill run through me and prickling around my eyes. If it were possible, I would be shedding tears. The thought of her being lost to this world was causing a visceral reaction I had never felt for anyone in my life—vampire life _or_ human life.

 

* * *

 

 

She looked a bit like the Michelin man, wearing practically every piece of her clothing we had brought along as well as one of my sweaters and my jacket. There was an advantage to her wearing enough clothing to fill a small store – it meant we could condense our entire luggage down to one bag.

We got odd looks from the hotel staff as we checked out, but since Bella could barely move her head from all the layers, she didn’t notice the sidelong glances.

We walked down the street toward the bus station until we were out of sight of the hotel and then turned north. Three blocks later, we were in farmland, hidden in the shadows of a stand of trees.

“Are you sure nobody will see us?”

“They won’t,” I assured her. “I’ll be going too fast and sticking to wooded areas wherever possible. Anyone who does catch a glimpse in the dark will just think it’s a figment of their imagination.”

Snow surrounded us and lights twinkled behind her head as I stared at her perfect porcelain face—the only part of her body exposed. I was lost in her for the longest time. I was only pulled from my adoration when she flushed bright scarlet.

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s embarrassing.”

I could hear the soft tones in my voice. They were almost hypnotic, even to my own ears. “You belong to me, Bella. I’ll stare at you whenever I like. And I’d like to do so for approximately ninety percent of the day. Now, hop up.”

I helped her settle, clinging to my front like a koala bear, and wrapped one of my arms around her rear to hold her steady. She wouldn’t have a very good grip, so it would be pretty much up to me to make sure she didn’t fall. Being able to hold her so closely was just a fortunate perk of the position. Once she was secure, I took our bag in the other hand.

“I estimate it’ll take us about an hour of running. Maybe two, depending on how far from the border we come across another town. Try and keep your face tucked in against my chest and out of the wind. It’s pretty cold already, but we might encounter some snow up ahead. I don’t want you getting frostbite.”

She nodded her head—which was already tight against me—and I took off.

I would like to be able to say that it was the most pleasant ride of Bella’s life. But I would be lying. By the time we reached Canadian soil, Bella was shivering violently and moaning periodically into my shirt. I asked her several times if she needed me to stop for a while, but she told me to keep going. An hour and forty minutes after leaving Rugby, we came up on a small town. Lights blazed in the windows of perfectly maintained houses and smoke blew from chimneys.

I set Bella down on a patch of sidewalk that was untouched by snow, keeping my hands on her arms for balance. It was needed, apparently, as she almost fell over the second her feet touched the pavement.

“Dizzy,” she groaned and promptly leaned over to empty her stomach of its contents. I rubbed her back in soothing circles as she continued to heave.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of one hand and holding onto my sweater with the other.

“Why do you need to be sorry? I’m the one who ran too fast for you.” I held her hand and led her into the town center. Outside a secluded house, I approached a car, checked there wasn’t an alarm system, and pried open the door.

“Jasper!” Bella hissed. “You can’t do that! That’s stealing!”

“I’m aware.” I pulled the envelope out of my back pocket with the money from selling our last car, and placed the envelope in the mailbox. “Better?”

She frowned. “I guess. It’s still wrong.”

“We need a vehicle unless you’d like to spend the next six hours with me carrying you. I just bought a vehicle from them.”

“Bought it without their knowledge!”

I shrugged. “Paid more than it’s worth, too. The police will find it tomorrow and they’ll get it back.”

“I’m not a criminal. My dad is the police chief.” Her arms were crossed over her chest—as much as her over-clothed body would allow—and her angry posture caused her right hip to jut out seductively. Even when she was irritated with me she still looked absolutely perfect. Mouthwatering—and it had nothing to do with her blood.

“That’s fine. You’re not borrowing it; I am. Get in.” I slung our bag into the back seat and pulled open the panel hiding the wiring. Hot-wiring was a piece of cake when you’d had Rosalie Hale as your teacher.

Her frustration and reluctance to comply was hitting me to my very core. It was almost as if it hurt me to hurt her. She stood outside the window, alternating between glaring at me and looking at the house nervously, and it was only once I got the car started that she stripped off two unneeded layers of clothing and threw herself into the passenger seat.

“Do you like making me an accessory to grand theft auto?”

“Bella, sweetheart, as much as you don’t want to hear this, the nature of what I am sometimes necessitates living outside the law. Do you think that my passport has my correct birth date on it? No, things like that have to be forged. We have to lie about who we are every day. We don’t live by normal human laws because we find ourselves in situations in which no human would ever find themselves. But the alternative to lying is to go off the grid entirely—which the majority of our kind resort to. They are nomads and roam the earth with no real purpose except survival.

“Now, if you’re really uncomfortable and can’t handle this, we can take this car back right now, but it will mean having to run until we get to a town with a car yard.”

She huffed, but was obviously acquiescing – she reached over and pulled her seatbelt on.

“Nobody is getting hurt here.”

“I guess,” she grumbled. She slumped in her seat, and within minutes she was struggling to stay awake.

“I love you,” I reminded her, keeping my voice low. She glanced at me, bleary-eyed. “Your safety—and right now, your comfort—is my top priority. I don’t know those people, so it’s easy to ignore how they feel to get what I want. But you need to remember that this is a much smaller crime against humanity than what I used to do on a daily basis.”

“You’re still inconveniencing them. They are going to be distraught when they realize what you’ve done.” Her voice got softer with each word. “That’s the important thing here; how you’re making that family feel. Not what is convenient for you and me.” And with her final admonishments, she drifted to sleep.

I went over her words in my mind. I was supposed to be the empath, but Bella seemed to understand peoples’ feelings better than I. Sure, I controlled their emotions to my will, but it had been a long time since I stopped to think about how my actions affected humans. My family, sure, but not strangers.

Not many things could change a vampire’s personality or way of thinking. I had thought that the only monumental shift that would happen to me had already happened – finding Bella and falling in love with her. The whole time I had lived with Alice, nothing had changed for me. I had known I wanted something different when I ran from Maria, and Alice had shown me the light.

But as much as I knew that Bella was perfect for me—my other half—the question had remained as to why. Why had the fates, or whoever designed these things, chosen her for me?

Tonight, for the first time, I wondered if maybe it was because she was making me a better person in a way nobody else had before.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

“Happier now?” I asked Bella. She really hadn’t been pleased about me stealing the car and had been subtly pouting for much of our journey.

After driving through half of Saskatchewan, we’d dumped the stolen car outside a police station in Saskatoon and bought a new one once businesses opened for the day. 

“I guess.” She snuggled into the soft leather seat as I drove east, keeping up our zigzag pattern of navigation. Her mood was better now she knew the family would get their car back.

I turned on the radio and found a country station. Bella wrinkled her nose at the choice but didn’t protest verbally, so the country remained.

“I do get it, you know,” she said as she watched my profile.

“Get what?”

“I get that sometimes there are circumstances when you can’t stay within the law. As much as I’d like to say that I’m my father’s daughter and the law is paramount, I did grow up with my mother. And she had no qualms about bending rules to suit what she thought was right.”

“Really? What like?”

“I might have caught her with pot a few times. Things like that. She’d always say that if she wasn’t hurting anybody then it was her business.”

“You know it’s not like I go around constantly committing crimes, right? It’s only when it’s necessary.”

“I know.” She was quiet for a while, nibbling on her lower lip. Not wanting to pressure her to talk, I kept most of my attention on the road and the radio.

“It’s a very different life you lead, isn’t it?” she mused.

“Well… yes.” It was possibly the understatement of the year.

“I mean, you told me the stories, but it’s hard to comprehend that they’re real.” In a rare role-reversal, she reached over to the gearstick where my hand was resting and threaded her fingers through mine.

“Very real,” I choked out. It didn’t matter how much we were together; every touch was still like lightning. “You’ve had a lot to deal with in the last week. It’s understandable if some of it seems like a bad dream.”

She squeezed my fingers. “Good dream. Ninety-eight percent good, anyway.”

“Really?” I was like a pig-tailed school-girl, still unable to believe that someone liked me. _Like_ liked me, in fact.

I kept driving, but she leaned over and caressed down the side of my face, wrapping her fingers through the curls at the end of my hair. “I wouldn’t change a thing, Jasper. If I had to go back and choose whether to meet you, even knowing the danger I was going to be in, I would choose you every single time.”

My mind flashed back to Emmett and me standing on the porch at the house and him asking me a very similar question. Back then, I didn’t really know what my own answer would have been. Even though I knew Bella was perfect for me, the constant knowledge that I had to give up Alice to be with Bella gnawed away at me. But here was Bella, so innocent, with her whole life ahead of her, and she was so sure of herself. Sure of me. Sure of us. Her emotions didn’t betray one ounce of hesitancy as she spoke. All she was emitting was love. Love which I willingly sent back to her.

Her thumb rested near the edge of my lips, so she felt—as well as saw—when the grin spread across my face.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone, handing it to her.

“Sweetheart, can you do me a favor?”

“Of course.”

“While we’re still close enough to the city to get good reception, open up my messages and text Emmett.”

“Okay.” She pressed a few wrong buttons, not proficient at texting, but found the correct page. “What am I saying to him?” Her fingers were poised over the keypad.

“Okay, type: ‘In reply to your question the other week, no, I wouldn’t change a thing.’”

 

* * *

 

 

“Jasper?”

I looked up from my book to see Bella standing in the doorway of the hotel bathroom. A twinge of nervousness was running through her. She was wearing a scandalous lack of clothing, which wasn’t helping me keep my control around her.

“Are—are those _my_ boxer shorts?”

“Do you mind? It’s just warmer in this hotel than it has been in the others, and my sweatpants were a bit too much.”

“I d-don’t—uh—mind at all,” I stuttered. Since when did vampires stutter? Never, that’s when. But something about her wearing my clothing just – _gah_!

She slipped under the garish floral coverlet, which made a harsh rustling sound as if it were made of plastic. “Are you planning to lie with me? Or is your book more interesting?”

She let out a throaty laugh when I was across the room and on the bed next to her at vampire speed.

“Are you tired?” I asked her, glancing at my watch. It was only eight in the evening, but she hadn’t slept the night before.

“A little bit,” she admitted. “Get under the blankets.”

“You’ll be too cold.”

“Didn’t we just discuss that it was unnecessarily warm in this room?”

“We did.”

“So get under the blankets.”

I smirked and rolled off the bed. “Yes ma’am.”

She snuggled up against my chest, her head resting on my shoulder, and kissed my neck. My t-shirt rasped against my abdominal muscles as she stroked my stomach. “What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?”

“Becoming a vampire.”

I froze for a second. “Why do you want to know that?”

“Jasper, I’m going to be involved in this world now. It’s important that I know all the details. And sometime in the future how one becomes a vampire might just be something that is very necessary for me to know. If I don’t know all the details, I can’t make an informed decision, can I?”

I cringed. I was torn. I didn’t want to think about a situation where changing her might become our only option, but I knew that it was inevitable. Keeping her human wasn’t a long term plan. If we wanted to stay together, it would be ridiculous for her to be forty years old while I remained nineteen. Not that I wouldn’t still love her if that was her decision, but I couldn’t imagine she would choose for that to happen.

I gripped her somewhat tighter than normal in an unconsciously protective gesture.

“How does it happen?” she prompted.

I sighed. I had to tell her these details. She was tenacious enough that I couldn’t ignore the question. “It’s a bite.”

She moved her head, crooking it up so she could see my face.

“Uh, normally when we feed, the venom that is in our mouths goes into the bite. If you don’t kill them—if their heart is still beating—the venom has a chance to go around the body. It changes each cell in the body one by one. It takes about three days, on average, and is….” I trailed off.

“It’s what?” She nudged me with her chin.

“It’s indescribable, really. It’s the worst pain you’ve ever felt in your life, multiplied by a hundred. It’s like you’re burning alive, like a red hot poker is searing each one of your veins. The pain was so intense, I lost track of time – I couldn’t tell if it had been three hours or three years.”

I glanced down at her face to see her cringing.

“That sounds pretty bad.”

“I know that I should still be trying to impress you, but yeah—I screamed the whole time. As much as I would do anything for you, I would hesitate before agreeing to that again if you asked.”

“It’s okay. I won’t ask you to do that.”

“I appreciate that.”

She lay her head back down on my chest and picked up my hand, gripping it tight. Her other hand began tracing along some of the more visible scars on my arm. “Is it hard?”

“Huh?”

“Is it hard being a vampire?”

“It depends. I’ll admit trying to stick to the animal diet is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It’s difficult trying to get used to your new strength. The first year or so is the worst, though. You have very little control, snapping at the slightest provocation, unsure who you really are, unsure where you fit in the world, and feeling like a monster. Overall it’s not too bad, though. There are definitely some good points. The freedom of running faster than the wind is exhilarating. And knowing you have forever to be with the ones you love… Well, who wouldn’t want that? But, yes, killing to survive can be depressing.”

“If I was changed, would I want to kill my father? My friends?”

I sighed heavily. “Bella, sweetheart, if you are ever changed, you won’t be able to see your father again. We’d have to leave. Firstly because, yes, you would want to kill him, and secondly, because he would be suspicious. We need to keep our cover. You would look slightly different and wouldn’t be aging.”

“I couldn’t see him anymore?”

I kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry.”

She continued her tracing of my scars as she took in the information. I felt horrible. Being with me would turn her world upside down even more than it currently had. She had been telling herself that it was okay to be lying to her father because she’d be able to make it up to him later.

She glanced up at my face. “And you live forever?”

“Well, we don’t age. So I guess you could say we live until someone kills us.”

“I don’t want to think about you being killed.”

She wrapped an arm across my waist, hugging me close, and inched her body up higher so she was partially lying on my chest.

“You’ll be pleased to know I have no immediate plans for that,” I told her, smiling, and kissed her. I felt her quickly melt into me, and her hands found their way into my hair. She was the one who deepened the kiss, and I wasn’t going to object.

I moved one hand to behind her head, the other resting on the small of her back, and I moaned into the kiss. Nothing felt better than this. She was so soft and warm, her weight pressing against me, and her lips moving languidly against mine.

“I love you, Bella. I’ll never leave you,” I whispered against her lips.

Her heart fluttered and her lips traveled down my cheek to my jaw. “Never?” she breathed.

“Never,” I confirmed.

She pulled her body farther over me so our bodies were completely aligned. She was so much shorter than me her feet rested just below my knees. Her movements had pushed the blankets down past her hips, and her tank top had bunched up slightly, two inches of her silky skin being revealed to my fingers.

“I love you too,” Bella muttered, pulling at my hair as she came in to attack my lips again. “I don’t know why, but I do.” One of her hands left my hair to travel down my arm, lingering on my biceps.

I moved my hand from her back down to cup her behind; the most intimately I had touched her so far. “That seems like an insult.” I squeezed her behind gently for emphasis.

She pulled her head back to look at me. “Not at all.”

I drew her back down to me, kissing her deeply for what was nowhere near enough time. She tasted so incredibly amazing it was hard to stop. But from the reaction my body was having, I knew I had to or I would never stop.

Cradling her in my arms, I moved her off me and pulled my knees up to hide my inadvertent response to her. “God, Bella,” I groaned, flinging my arm across my eyes. “You’ll be the death of me. My second death.”

“Sorry.” Embarrassment filtered through her lust.

“Never be sorry for being so desirable.”

She lay there, staring at the ceiling, her bunched-up top still disheveled and exposing her flat stomach. “I’m not desirable.”

My head flashed toward her. “You most definitely are. Remember, sweetheart, I can feel the lust of every male in every room you are in. I have to resist killing every single one of them.”

“But….”

“Trust me, Bella. You’re gorgeous. Beautiful. Perfect.”

I could tell she wasn’t convinced.

“Bella, feel this.” I sent her every ounce of love, lust and admiration I felt for her. She just laid there, eyes wide.

Her heart pounded and goose bumps exploded across her skin as she absorbed the depth of my connection to her. “Wow,” she whispered.

“Exactly. How can you question how perfect you are when you feel that?”

“I guess I can’t.” She sat up, fastened her deep brown eyes onto mine, and I sensed the love she felt for me in return.

“Perfect,” I whispered.

She needed to sleep. It had been a ridiculously long day. I pulled her back down, my arms wrapped around her, and spooned up behind her. I stroked up and down her arm as she relaxed and her eyes drooped.

“Jasper?” she whispered, her voice quiet and lethargic.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want to be changed. Not yet. I only just got my dad back. I want to spend more time with him. And I want to live a bit more of a human life. I want to graduate high school. I want to go to college. I want to go to some stupid frat party and get drunk. Give me five years or something, then we’ll look at it.”

“That’s fine, sweetheart. I understand.” In one way, I was a little bit relieved. Any way to put off the pain she would experience with the change made me happy. She was right – we would have to seriously think about it sometime, but now wasn’t the time. Right now, all we had to worry about was Edward. We had to find a way to get Bella back to Forks without the risk of her having the life sucked out of her. We would find a way; I was determined to find it. Everything else could wait.

 


	20. Chapter Twenty

The reluctance and resignation Bella felt when we loaded back into the car the next morning convinced me that we needed to stay in the same place for at least a couple of days. Some place we could rest and recuperate without the fear of the sun affecting our activities.

I was a vampire. I may not be a woman, but I could still multi-task. I could drive, make phone calls to organize a place to stay, and keep Bella from going mad from boredom. I was practically Superman. Just… without the way-too-revealing spandex situation.

After four hours, I pulled up in front of a log cabin. It was part of a camping ground consisting of twenty similar cabins, but since it was the middle of winter, there were no other guests. The owner lived fifteen miles away and was slightly reluctant to open the place up for us until I sweetened the deal with a promise of double his normal rate.

I was opening Bella’s door before she could even remove her seatbelt.

“M’lady.” I added a flourish of my hand for effect. “Your humble abode awaits.”

She looked at me as if I had grown a second head but allowed me to carry her to the porch of our cabin. She squirmed on the way there, protesting loudly that she was more than capable of walking, but changed her mind once I set her down and she had some time to look around.

The snow was deep, with snowdrifts several feet high. With her inadequate footwear, she would have quickly become a snowman had she attempted to walk through it herself. The snow sparkled in the afternoon sun, as did I. Trees a hundred feet high surrounded the clearing, towering up toward the washed-out blue of the winter sky. Everything was quiet—even _I_ couldn’t hear any cars—and the only sound was the hum of the power generator. The only signs evident that we weren’t the only people in a hundred mile radius were the footprints and tire marks left when the owner came and turned on the power for us.

Bella leaned back into my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her waist from behind.

“This is really nice, Jasper.” She deeply breathed in the untainted Canadian air.

“Better than the seemingly unending string of Holiday Inns and Ramadas?”

“Oh, much better.” She looked down and stroked a single finger along my sparkling hand. “And we don’t have to hide. We don’t have to pretend to be human and fit in with society.”

“We? You _are_ human, my dear. Or did you forget that?”

“I may be human, but I’ve never really fit in with the rest of society. I’ve always been different. Maybe that’s why we fit together so well.”

“Maybe.” I smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Perhaps your mind somehow knew that the love of your life wasn’t human, so you didn’t need to try so hard to belong. Perhaps there wasn’t a choice in whether we would meet – it was always meant to happen.”

“Like destiny?”

“Yes. Just like that. Does that scare you?”

“No, not at all.” She turned in my arms and pulled my head down so she could kiss my lips. “It feels right.” She ended with a shiver.

I quickly realized that as beautiful as the scene before us was, I had an underdressed human out in ten degree weather, and she would quickly freeze if I didn’t get her inside. I led her through the front door, which was unlocked as promised. The walls, as expected, were native timber and the roof was a natural A-frame. A fire was roaring in the hearth with comfy couches surrounding it, and one wall was lined with a bookcase filled with beautiful leather-bound books.

“There should be a bedroom and bathroom back here,” I told Bella, leading her to the right with my hand on the small of her back. “I’ll bring our bags in and you can freshen up or whatever it is you girls do in the bathroom after a long trip.”

She gasped when we entered the bedroom. There was a beautiful four-poster bed in the middle of the room with a cream thick shag rug covering the cold wooden floors. A picture window looked out into the forest behind the cabin and there was a window-seat perfect for reading.

“This is amazing, Jasper. You are spoiling me.”

“I’d like to take all the credit, but I honestly had no idea what it looked like when I booked the place,” I chuckled.

“Still… It’s perfect.”

“I’m glad you like it. I thought we would stay a while here. A few weeks, maybe? Long enough to work out our next move.”

If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was supernatural with how fast she moved to embrace me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“I’m assuming you approve, then?”

“Very much so.”

“Okay, sweetheart, I’ll go get the bags and the groceries from the car. We can just relax for the rest of the day.” For the first time in a week, we didn’t have anywhere to go. We didn’t need to run anywhere or worry about getting out of town. And even our scents would be somewhat masked by the snow. We could feel safe here. Long enough to reduce both of our stress levels.

 

* * *

 

 

It was almost as if we were playing house. This was what it would be like to live with Bella. She was excited to be able to cook a real meal—not the take-out and diner meals she’d been living on for a week—and she seemed to be making up for lost time. I sat back with a book in my hands and surreptitiously watched her work. She was humming to herself, content, as she banged around in the cupboards and clashed pots together.

I couldn’t deny, however, that the best part of watching her was when she dropped one of the bags of rice and it burst all over the floor. Initially, I jumped up, offering to help her clean it up, but she waved me off. Boy was I glad I had listened to her. Instead of cleaning, I had been treated to a front row seat to her bending over with the dustpan. My perfect view of her ass made me forget any pretense of reading, and I stared openly. Not unexpectedly, the sight was stirring things inside me which I had been trying and failing to keep hidden the last few days. There was a smidge of smugness as she stood up, which made me think she had positioned herself like that on purpose.

She knew exactly what she did to me. I could only hope that the feeling was reciprocated.

For someone normally so uncoordinated, Bella was a natural in the kitchen. Her body seemed to flow through the movements necessary like water. Her hips moved languidly to music only she could hear as she stirred the pot of what I could only pinpoint as some kind of sauce.

Almost as if the kitchen were surrounded by some kind of force field, the second she exited the room, she regained her clumsiness. She plopped down on the couch opposite me and immediately spilled some of the red sauce on her white t-shirt.

“Oops,” she said with a giggle, and moved to stand up.

“No, stay there. I’ll fix it.” I was back, kneeling in front of her, within seconds. I dabbed at the stain with the damp dishcloth, obeying her every instruction like a puppy. Gripping her waist with one hand, I dutifully rubbed at her shirt, making a bigger wet patch with each stroke. A small part of my mind—the dirty part, I assumed—was hoping that if I kept rubbing long enough, my path would rise up to be touching her breast.

“Jasper, baby, I think it’ll be easier to just change my shirt.”

I pouted like a child as I abandoned my task until a wicked thought came to me. “Well, take it off, and I’ll run it through the washer.”

She laughed at me. “Nice try, but I’m not wearing a bra.”

I had known this already. My superhuman eyesight was well aware of her lack of undergarments. “That’s not a problem.”

She playfully whacked my arm. “You’re pushing it.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” As I flopped back into the couch cushions, I lamented that she hadn’t taken my suggestion seriously. I would really have no problem with her walking around naked. Or even half-naked. Or in her underwear…

I literally slapped myself to stop my train of thought.

 

* * *

 

 

Day dawned as Bella awoke, nestled in my arms. It was perfect. She fit against me like the missing piece of a puzzle. And when I compared the nights she had slept in my arms to the nights she had spent alone, I surmised that her sleep was a lot more peaceful with me.

While Bella had slept, I had texted Alice to make sure everything was still well back at home. She confirmed that Edward was still limbless, which comforted me greatly. Bella yawned and her eyes fluttered open. As she stretched her arms above her head, her top rode up, exposing a sliver of porcelain skin. I tried to place my cellphone on the nightstand while keeping my eyes on her, but didn’t reach quite far enough. It missed its target and ended up falling down the side of the bed onto the thick rug below. Apparently Bella was unintentionally seductive enough to distract even a vampire.

Shrugging, I told myself that I would retrieve it later. I’d need to plug it in to be charged overnight, but right at that moment, Bella was more important.

“Morning,” I whispered into her hair.

“Morning,” she groaned. “Really? Is it? It’s still dark out.”

“The sun’s just coming up. It’s almost nine, though.”

She rolled over to snuggle further into my chest. “Don’t want to get up.”

I smiled down at her. “What if I told you that it looks like the sun is going to shine all day? I thought we could wrap you up warm and go outside to make snowmen.”

“And snow angels?”

“Sure. Snow angels too.”

“Okay. I’m up.”

She was fast with her breakfast and didn’t even complain when I made her wear more clothing than she probably needed, considering the sun would keep the worst of the chill away.

“This feels so weird!” she shouted at me as she packed snow together to make snowballs. She didn’t seem to care that I was letting her hit me—there was no way she’d hit me if I was actually trying to avoid her throws—and squealed with delight every time she got a snowball on target. “When you rub bits together it squeaks like styrofoam!”

“Have you never played in the snow before?”

“I lived in Phoenix until a month ago. When does it ever snow there? And I only ever really visited my dad in summer.”

“Good point.” I lobbed a small snowball high so it landed perfectly on top of her head.

“Hey!” She shook her head desperately. “Ew! It’s all through my hair!” Her teeth were chattering slightly after being outside for over an hour.

I walked over to her and pulled her into my arms, kissing her cheek. “That sounds like a good excuse to run you a bath. It’ll warm you up.”

“That sounds good. And a cup of hot chocolate.”

“Deal.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bella’s emotions were all over the place as she showered and prepared for bed that night. She seemed to take longer showering than she normally did, and I wondered just what she was doing in there.

As she brushed her teeth, I could feel lust coming off her—which, naturally, I loved—but also incredible nervousness. What did she have to feel nervous about? Did she want to talk about something? Was she still scared of Edward? Did I need to reassure her more that I would protect her with every ounce of my being, even if it meant sacrificing myself?

I slipped between the sheets, assuming that she would want me to stay with her through the night again. She seemed to like me being there. Why would tonight be any different?

She opened the door and paused—her heart skipping a beat when she saw me—before tiptoeing across the room and sliding into bed. She didn’t curl toward me as she often did but instead lay on her back. Her mahogany hair spread out against the crisp white pillow, making her look like an angel. _My_ angel.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

Her nervousness hadn’t gone away, but I still couldn’t put my finger on the cause.

“Yes,” she said breathily.

I raised an eyebrow in expectation. I felt like I needed her to say something more. It took several minutes before she did.

“Come here.” She reached an arm out toward me and grasped my arm, pulling me so I was lying almost on top of her.

She craned her neck to kiss me roughly. I sure wasn’t going to complain, especially when she opened her mouth to me. I was lost in the kiss until she pulled away.

She looked directly into my eyes. “Jasper?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“I…” She seemed to lose her nerve. It felt a bit like when she first said she loved me. The same kind of feelings were emanating from her.

“What is it?” I prompted her.

“I don’t want to wait anymore,” she whispered.

“Wait for what?”

She seemed to be steeling herself. “Jasper, look at me.”

I obeyed, looking directly into her deep brown eyes.

“I want you.”

“You have me.”

“No. I _want_ you.” She leaned up to kiss me forcefully on the mouth.

Oh. _Oh!_ A light bulb went off in my head. What she was asking suddenly made sense in my head, and my body froze.

“Really?”

She nodded coyly. The nerves were back.

“Now?”

“Now.”

 

* * *

 

 

**_Alice_ **

I guess it’s a side effect of my gift; I really can’t handle not knowing what’s going on. So when Emmett received a text from Jasper, I bugged him for a full two days until he explained it to me.

I know it’s over between Jasper and me. I know it was inevitable and there was nothing I could have done to change it. I know she’s perfect for him. But still – hearing him say that he wouldn’t change anything even if it meant he could still be with me… it hurt.

Jasper was my whole world for an average human lifetime. I loved him so desperately, and the fact that he now loved someone else hadn’t changed that. I hoped that Carlisle’s theory was correct, and once Bella was changed our bond would be broken, and I would be able to move on. Maybe once that happened I would start having visions of a new mate – because right now I couldn’t see any potential mate in my future at all.

I was curled up with my head in Esme’s lap, mourning the message received from my ex-husband. He was happy, which in itself made me happy, but I couldn’t help but be upset that he had moved on from me so completely.

We would always be the best of friends—I had seen that, at least—and I also knew that I would be close to Bella once she changed, whenever that happened.

I stiffened as I was hit with a vision based on Carlisle’s latest decision and sighed heavily.

Esme ceased her stroking of my hair and looked down at me. “What is it?”

I gave her a resigned look before indicating my head across the room to where Edward sat. He was picking out a piece on his piano with his one remaining hand. My eye movements between Edward, Carlisle’s study and the basement seemed to explain to my mother what was happening.

Carlisle—the soft-hearted soul he was—couldn’t stand to see Edward suffering any longer. He was going to give him back his missing limbs.

I’d been relatively good at hiding my visions from him, but now I would need to be extra vigilant.

 

 

 

 


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

 

**_Jasper_ **

_Love. Desire. Trust. Certainty._

Bella’s emotions didn’t waver. She wanted this just as much as I did. More so even, because I was still conflicted. Even though we had been together practically every waking moment since leaving Forks, we had only found each other a month ago. It just seemed too fast for a normal, human seventeen-year-old’s relationship. Then again, this was far from a normal relationship.

“Jasper, don’t make me beg.”

More desire hit me full force. She was really learning how to use my gift to her own advantage.

“God, Bella, I so want to. But after your insistence on not breaking laws, are you sure you want to break this one? You’re seventeen.” I was an idiot. Even as I said the words, I wasn’t sure why I was trying to talk her out of it. “I mean, I do have fake ID which would make it legal, but if you take the year I was actually born, then we really can’t use the ‘less than fifty-nine months age difference’ defense.” I had to be the daftest being on the planet; who wouldn’t jump at the chance being offered here?

“That’s in Washington. We’re in Canada. I’ve been legal here for three years,” she pointed out. She looked up at me pleadingly, but her emotions betrayed how nervous and insecure she was feeling. “Now, are you going to keep arguing and ruin this for me, or are you going to make love to your soulmate?” She cringed slightly as she heard the words come out of her mouth. She seemed surprised that she had said them out loud.

I didn’t have to think about that one. All of my doubt had instantly slipped away, and I was eager to do my beloved’s bidding. “Oh, definitely the second option.” I leaned in to pepper the length of her pale neck with kisses. God, how I loved to feel the throbbing of her life force beneath my lips.

“Then strip,” she commanded with a smirk. She seemed to be holding back a giggle.

I couldn’t help smirking myself. “Yes, ma’am.” My clothes were gone and I was back with her before she could blink twice. I would have left my underwear on, but since I hadn’t been wearing any, that decision was taken away from me.

Her heart beat faster as the bed dipped next to her and she noticed my nudity. This alone was such a big step for her. She definitely hadn’t seen me in any state of undress before, and I doubted that she had seen any man bare before. An errant thought flitted through my head that if she had, I would be inclined to hunt them down and kill them.

I reached for her, unsure what I wanted more – to kiss her or begin removing her clothing.

“No,” she objected, and every ounce of yearning I had was put on hold. Had she changed her mind?

My face must have shown my disappointment, because she sat up and ran her fingers over my eyes and cheeks.

“I want to look at you,” she explained.

“By all means.”

I watched her face as I lay completely still. Her eyes stayed locked with mine for several seconds, anticipation flooding both of us, before she ventured her gaze further south. She took her time, taking in every inch of my skin. Her observation paused at my chest, and she traced the scars her limited eyesight could make out. I shuddered at her touch, feather light and unhurried.

“So beautiful,” she breathed.

“Not many would agree with you,” I debated. “Most vampires would just see them as a sign of how dangerous I am.”

“They’re wrong.” She continued tracing the crescent shapes. “Each mark on your body is part of you. Each one has a story—a story that made you into the amazing person you are now—and each one shows that you’re a survivor. You can take on anything – physical or emotional.”

I’d never heard anyone speak about my deformities that way before. Alice loved me, and she overlooked the scars and my dark history, but Bella went further than that. Bella believed they were a good thing. She truly was remarkable.

She stubbornly kept her gaze on my torso for several minutes before venturing further down. Her breath caught and heart pounded at the uncharted territory. Now, I could assume that any male on the planet would gain a little ego boost at that reaction from their mate, and I was no different. We were going to spend the rest of eternity together; it pleased me that she seemed to like what she saw.

Her hands skipped the part of me that ached for her touch the most—understandable considering her lack of experience—and skimmed down my leg.

“Bella,” I moaned as her touch began its journey back up my other leg and stopped at my thigh. This girl would forever be the cause of pleasure and pain, attainment and frustration. She was the one living being who could leave bruises on my heart.

_Lust. Nervousness. Surety. Need._

Bella picked my hands up and kissed the back of each one before moving them to the hem of her tank top. She stared deep into my soul. Nothing else in the world existed. I felt the lift of her chest as she breathed heavily. Without breaking our connection, she slowly lay down against the pillows, essentially dragging me with her. As if we were of one mind, both our eyes flitted down to where I grasped her top.

I didn’t need to be asked. Inch by agonizing inch, I moved the hem up to reveal her flat stomach, her belly button, the underside of her breasts. I paused, flicking my gaze back up to her face.

She nodded twice.

Not wanting to cover her beautiful face for longer than necessary, I whipped the shirt the rest of the way off, making Bella gasp from the speed. I didn’t pause to look at her exposed body; I simply covered it with my own and kissed her slowly. It had been too many minutes since I had tasted her mouth. It was a taste that could cure any evil in the world. I should sell it to warring countries and watch as they called truces. Surely nobody could think about fighting when they were kissing Bella.

“Shorts… off…” Bella forced out when I allowed her up for air.

Without stopping the kissing, I obeyed, pushing her boxer shorts down her legs—rather awkwardly—one side at a time. Her scent flooded my senses, and shuddering, I pulled back to sit on my heels.

She wasn’t wearing panties—she really _had_ been preparing for this—and she was finally bare before me. My eyes traveled her body from head to toe.

Intellectually, I knew that she was designed perfectly for me, but as I gazed at her body I had to disagree. She wasn’t simply perfect for _me_. She was simply perfect. Anyone would have to agree. There wasn’t an inch of her that I would change.

I couldn’t comprehend what I had ever done to be so blessed. I was the luckiest man—human or vampire or any other being you could imagine—in existence.

“Mine.” There was just the hint of a growl in my voice.

“Yes, Jasper. Yours.”

A thrill went through me at her words. She had said them before, but they held so much more weight knowing that she was completely giving herself to me tonight. I couldn’t wait; I lowered myself onto her, attacking her lips once more.

The weather had changed since we were outside. The wind blew the trees violently and I could hear snowflakes battering against the window. Outside, the world was horrid and inhospitable, but here inside it was warm and—like we were surrounded by a bubble—none of that mattered.

I allowed my hand to travel up her side, caressing each molecule of skin, until it reached the side of her breast. As I hesitated, she shifted sideways, and my hand was on her. She fit in my hand so perfectly, and I could feel her nipple hard against my palm. I didn’t stop kissing her, letting my tongue explore her soft mouth, as my left hand explored her body.

While I would never tire of feeling her supple breasts, I had other territory to discover, and I moved lower. I paused at the top of her thigh.

“Sweetheart, I need to know that you’re absolutely sure.”

“I’m so sure. It might seem fast, but this feels so incredibly right. Like something is drawing me to you. Telling me that it’s time. That you’re mine.”

She gasped softly and her legs fell slightly apart as I touched her. I went slowly at first, but let her involuntary movements guide me.

“Please, Jasper,” she moaned, tugging my shoulders higher.

I acquiesced – she definitely felt ready, and I was even more so. I was sure I wasn’t going to last long, vampire endurance or not.

I pulled one of her legs around my hips. She took the hint and moved the other leg herself to curl around my lower thigh.

Bella grasped the back of my head, her fingers twisting in my hair, and pulled me down for another searing kiss. “I love you, Jasper.”

“I love you, too. More than I thought was possible.” And with that, I guided myself inside her. She tensed for a second, but I calmed her. I couldn’t take away the physical pain, but I could take away as much as possible of the inner turmoil, keeping her relaxed. “Shhh, you’re okay.”

She nodded and wrapped her arms tightly around my shoulders. I couldn’t smell any blood, so it could have been worse.

I moved slowly, letting her adjust. When I could no longer fight the urge to move faster, I began touching her cautiously, hoping that even if it was her first time, maybe she could gain some pleasure from the experience.

When she moaned softly, my name was like a hymn upon her lips. I felt so blessed to have her in my arms. Whatever god was looking out for me deserved the highest of praises. Alters and sacrifices.

_Desire. Adoration. Submission. Anticipation._

I could feel myself beginning to fall into oblivion. I took my own lust and love and bounced it back at her, pulling her feelings into myself. Everything I ever felt for her, I made sure she could also feel.

“Jasper,” she whispered with a shiver, gripping the tendrils of hair against my neck tightly.

I felt myself falling and couldn’t stop the descent even if I wanted to. I thought I could hear Bella’s name fall from my lips, but couldn’t be sure. All I could think of was how each inch of my skin against hers felt in that instant. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. It was absolute completion.

I knew I was probably squashing her, but I found I couldn’t move. When I came back to awareness, God only knows how much time had passed. She had completely consumed my body and mind, leaving me oblivious to everything. My face was buried in her neck, her hair mixing with mine around my face, and Bella was stroking my back with just the finest touch of her fingers.

I made to pull out and move off her, but she grasped my ass and held me in place. “Don’t move. Stay there,” she whispered, and I was more than happy to comply.

We kissed slowly and languidly, and the feeling of her body underneath mine almost made me want to take her again. But I knew that was a stupid idea – she was human and until tonight had been a virgin. I saddened when a small movement of her hips broke our connection, and with a sigh Bella rolled us over so she could snuggle into my side.

“No regrets, right?” she whispered into the semi-darkened room.

“Never,” I affirmed. “Even when I look back on this night in a hundred years’ time, it will be the most perfect experience of my life. Nothing could ever be this flawless. Because it’s you, sweetheart, who’s here to share it with me.”

She sighed happily and rubbed her cheek against my chest. “Perfect,” her hushed voice let out.

I reveled in the feeling of her naked body pressed against mine as her breathing grew deeper and she fell into slumber. I listened to the simultaneous sounds of her peaceful sleep in contrast to the raging of the weather outside, where the storm seemed to gain in intensity as each hour toward dawn passed.  

If I hadn’t known that there was a supernatural force pulling us together before, I definitely would have known it now. Something had changed within me. It wasn’t quite the change which occurred when I first met her, but something in my chest was different. I felt like the imaginary rope tugging to keep us together had grown thicker and stronger. When we had been in Forks, it had been incredibly painful to be at my house while she was at her own. Now I got the feeling that it would be physically impossible to be that far apart. Our bond had strengthened. And if it were possible, I would say that I loved her even more now.

I believed it was a small limb from one of the trees being torn away from its trunk and smacking against the house that woke her not long after the sun had risen.

With a whisper to inform her of my intent, I snuck out of her grasp to fill the bath. She would feel a lot better after a long soak.

As I stirred bath salts through the hot water with my bare hand, unable to be injured by the heat, I heard her slip out of bed and pad around the bedroom. Material slipped against her body, and she seemed to be picking up the clothes scattered over the floor.

“Jasper?”

I looked up to see her leaning against the doorway wearing just one of my shirts. My mouth filled with venom at the sight.

“Your phone was under the bed.” She held it up for me to see. “It’s completely dead. Won’t even turn on.”

I remembered being distracted by her body and failing to pick the phone up from the floor. “Oh. The charger should be in my bag. Can you plug it in?”

Nodding, she disappeared from my sight, and I heard her fiddling around with the power socket.

When she returned, I focused my attention on stripping her of the shirt she had been wearing and admiring her body. The body which was mine alone to view. She shivered as my hands rolled over her skin and I assisted her into the tub. I settled behind her, pulling her back against my chest.

“Do you feel okay, sweetheart?”

“Great,” she replied with a smirk.

“Are you sure? You’re not in pain?” I did a quick inventory of the parts of her body I could see without jiggling her too much. She had a few small bruises from where I had gripped her too tightly—one on her side and one near her shoulder—but nothing to be too concerned about.

Her skin flushed pink, and I finally noticed how it colored much more than just her cheeks. I couldn’t help but trace a fingertip over the blush on her chest and shoulders.

“I knew it’d hurt,” she told me, her voice so quiet a human would have struggled to hear her. “It wasn’t as bad as I expected.” I studied her face as she considered how to word it. “Just uncomfortable, I guess.”

“It won’t be like that forever. In fact, next time should be much more pleasurable for you.” I saw her blush return, even though it had receded only seconds ago. “I mean, of course, _if_ you wanted to do it again.”

She chuckled, and I could feel her whole body moving against mine. “You don’t need to worry about that, honey. I’ll always want you.” She seemed to think about it for a short while. “It’s that bond, I think. I can’t help myself.”

“Well, thank you to whatever god thought of _Sufletul Pereche_ , then,” I joked.

I snuggled against her neck, breathing in her scent which was intensified by the heat of the room and the increased blood flow from the warm water. I wished fervently that we could stay here in this cabin forever. That we could shut ourselves away from the world and just be the two of us together for all eternity.

Eventually, though, the outside world would intervene. It was inevitable. And just to prove my mental point, in the other room, my cell phone got to the point where it had enough battery power to turn itself back on. The whooshing sound it made as it turned on made me realize that we were connected back to reality.

And then two things made me freeze and grip Bella to me as tightly as was safe.

My cell phone began to beep continuously, indicating an infinite number of missed calls and text messages. More messages than I normally received in a month. Somebody—most likely Alice—had been desperately trying to get in contact with us.

And that was when I felt it. Someone was nearby—just within the range of my gift—and getting closer by the second. And it didn’t feel like a casual visitor. All I felt was anger, desperation and some of the most intense bloodlust I had felt in a long time.

It was Edward.


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

This was it. It was time to man up. The last time I fought Edward, I had let him get the best of me. I had ruined my reputation as one of the most feared fighters in the vampire world by being almost bested by a vampire who’d never been in a real fight in his existence. This time, I would not fail. Failure was not an option, as it meant life and death. Not for me, but for Bella – my whole reason for existing.

I shrugged to myself. Really, if Bella died—a thought that sent an incredible amount of pain through my extremities—I would probably die myself. Not from suicide, mind you. I was beginning to believe, especially since we had consummated our relationship, that anything that harmed her would harm me as well.

_Protect Bella at all costs. Save Bella, and save yourself._

I had about forty seconds before he would be here.

I climbed out of the bath, carrying Bella out with me.

She looked at me in shock. “Wh—what’s going on?” As she looked into my serious face, fear began to creep over her.

“There’s no time,” I rushed out. “He’s here. Get dressed. Lots of layers to hide your scent. And stay inside with all the doors and windows closed. I don’t want him to be able to smell you any more than necessary.”

I was almost at the bathroom door when I turned back and pulled her to me, kissing her firmly. “I love you. I’ll keep you safe,” I assured her, sending her all the love I possessed for her. I shuddered as I turned away from her.

Fifteen seconds away.

“I love you too,” I heard as I moved through the cabin. I tried to ignore the fear she was feeling and concentrate on the task at hand. It hurt me to move away from her when she was so scared, but it was in her best interest.

I didn’t have time to waste. At full speed, I threw a pair of jeans and boots on. I left my chest bare. It was a trick which often worked to intimidate the enemy – they saw all my scars and realized just how out-matched they were. Without their confidence, half the battle was already won. Now, Edward had seen me shirtless many times before, so he wouldn’t scare as easily. But if he was as feral as he felt from here, maybe he would forget that logical side of himself.

“Please come back to me in one piece,” was the last thing I heard from Bella as I exited the cabin and waited for her attacker in the clearing out front. Her voice was soft, almost like a prayer as opposed to something I was supposed to hear.

Five seconds.

He was approaching from the southwest. He must have known exactly where we were before even leaving Washington. I could hear Bella in the bedroom, dressing, and my chest clenched. Just minutes ago I had been the happiest I could ever recall feeling. I had truly made Bella my own, and we had both been luxuriating in the morning-after bliss. I could barely believe that she had wanted to let me make love to her, but I hadn’t felt an ounce of regret from her. She had been confident in her decision, and that made me even more certain in the solidity of our bond.

Now I stood here, needing to force myself into the right mindset to fight for her—to fight for our relationship. Light snow was still falling, and the fierce winds were swirling it around the clearing. Dark clouds graced the skies overhead, and thunder echoed in the distance.

I could hear Edward smashing through the forest now. He was normally a lot quieter when he ran, but the monster controlling him didn’t care about stealth. It was a shame, really, that I would have to kill him. This wasn’t like him. He wasn’t this monster—he had fought for almost ninety years to ensure he remained civilized.

I lowered myself down into a crouch and let controlled fury filter through my whole body. I was careful not to let myself go completely feral—Bella’s safety was at risk here, and I couldn’t risk her getting caught in the crossfire. My muscles were coiled to attack, and I sprung the second he burst through the tree line. He was heading straight for the door to the cabin, and I hit him from the side. He hadn’t even really registered I was there until he fell to the ground—all he seemed focused on was getting to my beloved. That was unacceptable.

He whipped his head around to look at me, his head flicking up tufts of snow, and growled at me. His eyes were completely black; I couldn’t see any of the Edward I knew behind them.

He clawed down my chest and snapped his teeth at me as I tried to get a grip on his newly reattached arm. I only managed a fracture in his marble skin when he rolled out from under me and sprung to his feet.

I followed him upright and looked directly at him. “Edward. Calm down and I won’t have to kill you.” It was a blatant lie, and he probably knew that. I was not letting him out of this altercation with his life.

A brief spark of recognition flashed through him, which gave me hope. Perhaps he would give up and this would be an easy fight.

No such luck, apparently. He charged at me, arms open like a newborn fighter. He went to grab me around the chest, and knowing he would use his ability to his advantage, I waited until the last second to decide which way to dodge his attack. As I spun away from his trajectory, I took the second before he turned around to push lethargy at him. It didn’t drop him to the ground, but it slowed him up a bit, which was helpful against someone with Edward’s innate speed.

He charged me again, intent on biting me, and I grabbed his arm and shoulder and flipped him over onto the snow-covered ground. The thud as he landed was like an earthquake, and any birds who hadn’t already been frightened off flew out of the trees as one, directly into the thunderous clouds.

Before he had time to get up again, I grabbed him by the hand and flung him at the trees, being careful to hold onto his hand for as long as my grip would last. It wasn’t a complete severing, but the hand wasn’t completely connected to his body when he hit the tree, causing it to fall.

While he was righting himself, I looked up to Bella. She was standing in the front window, watching everything, terrified. I caught her eyes and tried to ease her fear, but I didn’t think I was successful.

I looked over at Edward. He was striding toward me, holding his hand to his arm in an attempt to reattach it quickly. I sent him some more lethargy and a healthy dose of fear.

“I know what you’re trying to do, Jasper,” he growled, and his voice was rough and unrefined. Hardly Edward at all. “I’m strong enough to fight it. You think after all these years reading your mind I don’t know the chinks in your armor?”

I could feel his confidence. He wasn’t fading as much as I would have expected, so his theory seemed to hold some weight. He crouched into an attack stance and I mirrored him. I could see his legs twitching toward me when his head snapped up, distracted, and his nostrils flared.

I smelled it too.

_Bella._

I whipped my head around and saw her exit the cabin. Her arms were wrapped around herself against the force of the freezing wind.

“Bella, get back inside! It’s too dangerous!”

Edward’s lips pulled back to reveal his bared teeth, and a snarl ripped out of him. His muscles tensed, and just as he sprung, I grabbed his injured hand with a roar, swinging his body around until it tore off.

He shook his head to clear it, just like in a cartoon.

“Leave her alone. She’s mine!” I growled at him.

A glint shone in his eyes. His voice was gravelly as he spoke, and a line of venom was leaking from the side of his mouth. “Really? Pereche, right? The only thing important in your life? Your one and only?”

I didn’t answer him. I forced my knee into his chest, enjoying a bit too much the sound of his torso cracking slightly under my weight. Bella’s heart rate was almost dangerously high; I needed to get this over with quickly before she passed out or went into shock.

Just as I tried to get a grip on his head, Edward thrashed around, ending with his gaze set on my girl. “I’m sure, human, that he has told you all about his _mate_ waiting for him at home.” His speech was obviously directed at Bella, and her head jerked up.

I was distracted by Edward’s reveal. The one thing I was too nervous to tell Bella, and he had just spit it out at her.

Bella was filled with confusion as she registered what Edward had said. “Jasper?” she whispered.

I turned slowly to look at her. “Bella, it’s not…”

Her eyes flicked between Edward and I, and I moved toward her to comfort her.

Edward was on his feet the second my grip loosened, and I realized my mistake. He’d used the information against me. He’d delved deep into my mind and found my weakness.

“Don’t listen to him, Bella,” I told her in a soothing tone, and crouched defensively at the bottom of the steps. I heard the soft thud as Bella pressed herself against the heavy wooden door. “I’ll explain everything later. I know you trust me.”

“Trust?” Edward sneered. “How could she trust a man who forgot to tell her that he was _married?”_

Bella gasped behind me.

“Shut up, Edward.”

“Oh, yes, dear, delicious Isabella. You know Alice, don’t you? Jasper’s wife. They’ve been together—what is it?—sixty years now, Jasper?”

Bella whimpered and I couldn’t help turning to look at her. Our bond wouldn’t allow me to just let her cry with no comfort. I had to help her. Tears streamed down her flushed cheeks as she caught my eyes and sent me the most heartbroken look I had even encountered.

I took a step toward her and began filling her with a cocktail of trust, love and peace.

“Don’t manipulate me, Jasper,” she warned, stopping me in my tracks.

“Bella, please. It’s not like he says. You know how I feel about you.”

She shook her head and wiped angrily at her tears with the back of her hand.

“I love you more than I ever imagined I could love anyone. _You_. Please remember that. It’s _you_.”

From the other side of the clearing where he was collecting his hand, Edward chuckled evilly. “Never show your weakness, Jasper. You should know this. Now, if you’d be so kind as to step away from my lunch, we can be on our way.”

Anger swelled through me. He had no idea what he was dealing with. He’d never been in love. He’d never had a mate. And he definitely had never had a Pereche. He underestimated just what a man would do to protect the woman he loved. Even if she was mad at me. Even if she was questioning her own love for _me._ Even if she left me after this was all through, there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her. To my dying moments that would be my only goal. Edward just saw this as a game and a really good meal.

“Not a chance,” I snarled, and sprung across the clearing, using all the force of my power to cripple him in fear.

He fell to his knees, his hands gripping his head in an effort to fight my gift, just as I landed. For good measure, I kicked him in the head, with a whooshing sound that mirrored the sound of the wind through the trees. A dead tree branch fell in the woods not far from us, and I heard Bella gasp in fright.

“Mine! She is _mine_!” I screamed at him, kicking him in the side.

He attempted to grab my leg as it went past his head, but I was too fast for him in his semi-incapacitated state. While he was thrown off-balance, I tackled him onto his back. He squirmed, attempting to push me off him, but he lacked the required strength to overpower me.

My hands gripped each of his elbows, squeezing tighter and tighter before forcing them off at an unnatural angle. The screeching sound of vampire flesh being ripped was satisfying and only fueled my need for him to be gone more.

With only half an arm on either side, all he could do was buck his hips and bat the stumps of his arms at me when I leaned back and wrenched both his legs from his body. I then inclined down and bit into the joint between his neck and shoulder. He tried to head-butt me, and I ripped more flesh than was absolutely necessary from him with my teeth. I spat it so it landed on his forehead. He thrashed his head, dislodging the flesh. A silver venom trail was left down the side of his face.

This ended now.

The wind and the sleet seemed to calm, as if we were in the eye of the storm.

Something came over him. I looked at his resigned face. Even without his mindreading, he would have known his life was over. The monster was nowhere to be seen, and staring back at me was the face of my brother.

I steeled myself, forcing back the remorse which was starting to creep in. This was the only way to keep Bella safe from him. It was how it had to be.

I gripped each side of his head, ready to rip it from his body, and closed my eyes. I had done this thousands of times before, but I didn’t want to watch my own brother’s eyes as I forced the life from them.

I steadied myself in preparation and a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, the thunder so close I could feel the vibrations in the air.

“Stop!” Bella cried, and I could hear her running across the snowy grass toward us. “Don’t kill him.”

I didn’t let my fingers relax around his head, but I opened my eyes and looked up at her. She looked like an angel with the snow swirling around her and sticking to the hair flying around her face.

“Don’t kill him,” she repeated, softer this time. She still harbored a great deal of anger for me, but it was currently overridden by compassion, bravery and determination. “You might have been a killer in the past, but you’re not that man any more. I can’t make you go back to that place when there’s another option.”

“There is no other option.” My voice was hard. I knew this was what I had to do, and I needed to ignore my fraternal emotions to get the job done.

“There is,” Bella said with a whisper, and she rubbed her fingers through my hair, soothing me. “Change me. Change me now and he’ll no longer crave my blood.”


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it -- the last chapter. Just the epilogue to go.

I watched from the doorway as Bella gazed out the window at the lightly falling snow. I desperately wanted to ease her pain and heartbreak, but she had strictly forbidden me from doing so. She believed that the only way to get over it was to feel the emotions and not ignore them. Her claim made me wonder if I’d been doing a disservice to my family all this time.

“Sweetheart?”

She didn’t turn to look at me, but the way she flinched at my soft voice made it obvious she’d heard me.

“My family has arrived. They’re outside watching Edward.”

Her shoulders hunched as she wrapped her arms around her stomach.

“Alice has asked if she can speak with you.”

I heard her take in a deep, cleansing breath. “Okay,” she whispered.

“You don’t have to. Feel free to say ‘no.’”

“It might help to talk to her, I guess.”

Alice—being Alice—was in the hall, waiting, right as Bella accepted.

“Do you want me to stay with you?” I asked Bella, taking a cautious step closer to her.

“No.”

I wanted to be able to comfort her but managed to steel myself and let her be. “Okay, I’ll be outside. Call when you want me back.”

She continued to just stare out the window.

I passed Alice in the doorway. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed to me.

I just shrugged and wandered outside, settling on the top step of the cabin, my head in my hands. It wasn’t Alice’s fault that I hadn’t had the courage to tell Bella our history. I really should have done it a week ago when she first found out I was a vampire. This was all my doing.

It took all my powers of concentration to not listen to what the girls were talking about in the bedroom. It was a private conversation, and as much as Alice was used to not having privacy in a family of vampires, Bella wouldn’t appreciate my eavesdropping. Even then, a few phrases filtered through to my brain, and I knew from those that they weren’t killing each other.

Esme sat down next to me and took one of my hands in both of hers. “Is it true? You’re going to change her?”

“Apparently. She hasn’t spoken to me since she made the decision, so I don’t know why she isn’t just running away from me, but she hasn’t told me she’s changed her mind yet.” I shrugged.

“She’s doing this because she loves you, Jasper. She’s not going to leave you, even if she’s mad at you right now.”

I looked across the clearing at my brothers, sister and father. “This isn’t how it was supposed to happen,” I sighed. “I wanted it to be on our terms, and when she was absolutely ready.”

“Jasper, none of us had a fairy tale induction into this world. We all suffered trauma and angst in our last human moments, and we turned out fine.”

I sighed. “I suppose.” I just wished she could be the exception to the rule.

“Bella will have something that not many have, though. She’ll have someone she loves deeply changing her. She will wake up knowing how blessed she is to have you.”

“Or cursed.”

Esme tutted softly. “She might be angry, but she hasn’t stopped loving you. I’m sure she wouldn’t consider herself cursed.”

“I guess.”

She wrapped her arm around me, comforting me. “Will you come home with us?”

“I don’t know. It will be up to Bella, but I think it will take a while for both of us to be comfortable around Edward. And even Alice. We might stay away for now.”

I felt Esme nodding her head against my shoulder. I could sense she was disappointed at my decision, but she understood it.

The door opened, and Alice emerged. “She wants you, Jasper.”

I stood and looked down at her. I didn’t know what to say.

Alice smiled sadly. “I know. It’s okay. We’re going to all take Edward’s pieces back home. We won’t start reassembling him until I see that she’s been fully transformed.”

“Thank you,” I said softly, my head hanging.

My hand on the doorknob, I looked at each of them in turn, my gaze ending with Carlisle.

“I’m sorry, Jasper. I thought he was in control enough that having his limbs back would be okay. I see now that I was wrong.” He sighed heavily. “I should have been stricter with him.”

I nodded my acceptance of his apology—what else could I do but forgive him?—and entered the cabin. By the time I entered the bedroom, the family had all gone. Bella was sitting in the middle of the big bed, picking at the comforter.

“Bella?”

She looked up at me. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” I slowly moved toward her until I was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Alice was nice. She explained a lot to me. Maybe one day we’ll be able to be friends—you know, compare notes about you—but not quite today.”

I groaned as I considered the implications of the two of them gossiping about me. “Okay, yeah, maybe I don’t want the two of you to be friends.”

She giggled, and the sound warmed my cold heart.

“Are we okay?”

She looked up at me, and even through her anguish I could feel the love that emanated from her the second she saw my face. “Yeah. I get it. You didn’t know _how_ to tell me. It’s just the idea of you being married before me that stings, really. And I know that’s silly—I knew you weren’t exactly celibate before me. You’d made that clear. Just, a wife is so much more than a lover.” She gave me a watery smile. “You and me, though? We’ll be fine.”

I nodded. I understood her completely. Because if she had been with someone before me, I wouldn’t want to ever cross paths with them. “We can wait to change you if you still want. It doesn’t have to be right now.” I hesitated. “Or… ever. Just say the word and I’ll get him back here. He’ll be ashes before he knows what’s coming.”

She crawled over to me and pulled my hands into her own tiny ones. “No. It was selfish of me to not think of the consequences of my decision to wait, but I see them now. I wanted some more time with my dad and to go through those expected human rites of passage. But eventually, I _will_ be changed, right?”

I nodded hesitantly. That was what I hoped would happen.

“Nobody should have to die just because I want to put off the inevitable,” she concluded. “Especially not your brother. I know enough to know he’s not a bad person, that me being human is driving him crazy. This isn’t his fault, and he certainly shouldn’t be sentenced to death because of it.”

“Are you absolutely certain, sweetheart?” I whispered, and let my head fall down to rest in her lap.

“I’m sure.” Her fingers found their way into my hair, and she tugged gently. “Look at me.”

I slowly raised my eyes to her beautiful face, serene even after the horror of the last few hours.

“This is the right thing to do. I know it is.” She cupped my face in her hands and kissed me chastely. “For everyone.”

“It’s going to hurt,” I warned her. “The worst pain you’ve felt multiplied by one hundred.”

“I know,” she said with a sad smile. “But you’ll be right here by my side every step of the way.”

“I promise.”

She pulled me closer to her and kissed me again, letting the kiss become more passionate this time. I could feel love and acceptance coming from her, and my chest ached knowing that I was going to hurt her. Every cell in my body rebelled against the idea of causing her pain.

I had her on her back in the middle of the bed before I even realized, my tongue exploring her mouth, and she moaned softly against me. I cradled her body and moved her up so her head was resting on the pillows. My hand found its way to sneak under the hem of her shirt, but she quickly batted it away.

“Not now. We’ll have plenty of time for that when I’m like you,” she told me breathily when she pulled away for air.

She angled her neck up to kiss me again, peppering my face with her pecks. As she did so, I barely noticed that she had gathered her hair in her fist and pulled it all to one side of her head.

I froze, realizing she was exposing her neck to me.

“Are you absolutely sure you want this right now, sweetheart?”

She nodded emphatically. “Positive. No use in waiting.” She held my head in her hands and locked eyes with me. “Today is the start of our forever.”

“I don’t want to live forever,” I muttered, and explained myself when she looked confused. “I don’t want to live forever. I don’t even want to live a thousand years. I only want to make sure I live one day longer than you—because all I want to do is look after you for your entire life.”

She smiled up at me, and tears welled up in her eyes. “Well, you better get started on making me immortal then, because I have no intention of allowing you to die.”

“I love you beyond comprehension, Bella.” I leaned in and kissed her with all the passion I could muster. This was going to be the last kiss she had as a human, and I was going to make it good. I could feel her lips molding against my stone ones. She was so delicate – like a feather.

I was lost in the bliss of her tongue against mine when I felt determination sweep through her, mixed with a tiny amount of fear. She broke our kiss when she turned her head to the side, and I kissed down her chin and onto her neck. Her artery throbbed beneath my lips, and I wished I could weep, knowing that it was the last time I would feel it.

Over and over I kissed her pulse point, breathing in her beautiful scent. I knew I was procrastinating.

“It’s time, Jasper,” Bella whispered. “I love you.”

With thoughts of how far we had come in such a short amount of time, I bit down.

And my perfect girl—my _Sufletul Pereche_ , the other half of my soul—stiffened as she stifled a scream.

 


	24. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it -- the epilogue. There is a short companion fic, which focuses on Alice's story, which I will post shortly.  
> Thanks to all of you who have read this.

 

**_Alice_ **

The scandal had rocked Forks. For months they were talking about the daughter of the police chief, and how she ran off with her boyfriend after only living with her father for a few weeks.

“Flighty,” they had called her. “Just like her mother,” they had whispered. The town had not forgiven Bella’s mother for abandoning her husband, and Bella seemed to be destined for the same fate in Forks’ history.

We moved to New Hampshire about a year after it all happened. It was time. Youth was both our blessing and our curse. Esme had wanted to leave earlier—she protested that if Jasper and Bella wanted to live with us, we couldn’t stay in Forks—but Carlisle continuously reminded her that it would look odd for us to leave straight after Jasper had “run away.”

“How long, Alice?” Esme asked me for what felt like the hundredth time. She was gripping onto Carlisle’s sleeve and bouncing on her toes like an impatient three year old.

“Two more minutes.”

I looked around at my family. All of us had been anticipating this day for a long time.

Well… most of us, anyway.

It had now been twelve years since Bella had been changed and, apart from a few short visits, we hadn’t seen much of them. They had lived semi-nomadic lives, traveling wherever the wind took them, much like they had been in the last week of Bella’s human life. We had finally convinced them to spend at least a short amount of time living with us in Newfoundland.

Rosalie and Emmett were quietly murmuring between themselves, and Emmett kept glancing down the driveway. He really did see Bella like a sister and had been anticipating their return almost as much as Esme and I had.

At the other end of the porch, Edward stood with his arms wrapped around his newborn mate, Christine.

“Nobody blames you,” she whispered to him. He nuzzled the top of her head, burying his nose in her curly, blond hair. They had met several years ago when she had been a student teacher on placement in the Pennsylvanian high school we had been attending. She had been changed last summer, and that hadn’t been the only change to happen. Edward was completely transformed. He was actually… happy. It probably also helped that he seemed to be paying us all back for the nights he’d had to endure listening to our various amorous activities. The eternal virgin was sure making up for the century he had spent alone.

Our ears perked up at the sound of the car coming closer.

Rosalie listened the most carefully. “Mustang,” she murmured. “Nice.”

I grinned to myself when they pulled up and the sight of Jasper emerging from the car no longer hurt me. Since Bella had been changed, my feelings for Jasper had changed as well. It pleased me that after several years of pain, knowing I was losing him, I was freed from the grasp of my love for him. I knew he was truly better with Bella, and the way he looked as they walked toward us was evidence of that.

They both wore casual jeans, sneakers and vintage band t-shirts. Jasper also wore a brown leather jacket, and Bella’s hair was wild around her shoulders. None of it was what I would have styled them in, but they seemed comfortable, and it somehow suited their personalities.

Jasper naturally walked slightly in front of Bella, always wary of threats to his mate, even when those perceived threats were his own family.

Esme couldn’t hold back any longer, and with a squeal of “Jasper! Bella!” she was down the stairs and flung herself at them. The rest of us hung back as she fussed over them like a mother hen and led them inside. She barely remembered to stop to introduce them to the new member of the family.

After a few hours of catching up on what everyone had been doing, all the boys went out to hunt, leaving us five girls alone to “bond.” The instant they left the house, Bella was on edge, her burnt copper eyes—evidence that she and Jasper had been mixing humans and animals in their diet—constantly darting to the windows.

I sat down on the couch next to her. “They’ll only be gone a few hours, you know.”

“I know,” she replied absently, her fists clenching and unclenching rapidly. “It’s just he hasn’t hunted without me since I was turned.”

I started by giving each girl a pedicure while we gossiped about the men. Asking Christine questions was always the most interesting – everything was still so new for her and Edward, and you just knew that if she were still human she’d be blushing furiously.

Bella, however, didn’t join in as much as we would have liked. Her reticence made me wonder if my visions were wrong, and she wasn’t planning to stay with us for very long. She sure didn’t seem comfortable around us. Which, I guessed, made sense. She was accustomed to it just being her and Jasper most of the time. Being in such a large group of virtual strangers was bound to make her uncomfortable.

As we spoke about the preparations for Christine’s upcoming wedding, she turned to Bella. “Are you and Jasper going to get married any time soon?”

Bella bristled. “No,” she replied shortly before amending her answer. “I’m sure yours will be lovely, but it’s just not our thing. I mean, Jasper’s already been married” – I felt everyone try to _not_ look at me – “and I’ve never wanted to do it. My parents weren’t exactly the best example of wedded bliss.”

I tried to protest. “You could just—”

“No, Alice. We don’t want a wedding. We already have a bond much more permanent than a ring and a piece of paper.”

I pouted, but she just gave me a look and turned back to the magazine she was flicking through.

Half an hour after the boys had left, her reserve and mood made a bit more sense. She suddenly clutched at her chest, cringing.

“Oh, for the love of God, Jasper,” she gasped. “What’s so great that you have to go so far away? They’re just animals.”

I didn’t think she really knew she had spoken out loud, and we all looked at her in shock.

“I’m sorry... I… I… can’t.” Her eyes darted between each of us before she raced out the door. We watched her as she stopped for a second in the backyard, closed her eyes, and then sped off into the trees.

“What the hell was that?” Christine asked, her eyes wide. I could see from her expression she thought Bella was weird. She didn’t have the history with Jasper or Bella to accept them straight away into the family.

“When Jasper and Bella first met, he would complain about it hurting to be away from her,” I explained. “I guess that still happens, if what we just witnessed is anything to go by.”

“It’s really that strong?”

“I guess,” I sighed. “Jasper once said it was like his heart was tethered to hers and being too far apart would rip their insides out.”

“That sounds horrible.”

Rosalie jumped in. “It would have its advantages and disadvantages. Look at how Bella knew exactly which way to go to find him. If I was looking for Emmett, I’d have to run around until I caught his scent. She didn’t have to breathe in to find him; she just automatically followed the tugging.”

Christine nodded. “I’m still glad I just have an ordinary mate, though. As much as I love Edward, Bella looks like she’d die without Jasper. That’s scary.”

“Yes, she probably would,” I confirmed. “But the chances of finding your Pereche are so slim, you shouldn’t worry about it.”

You speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Jasper and Bella emerged from the trees, holding hands, with Bella looking a million times more relaxed.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I won’t do it again. I got carried away competing with Emmett,” he whispered to her as they entered the house. His t-shirt had a small bloodstain on the sleeve which instantly got the attention of the newborn in the room.

Jasper sensed Christine’s bloodlust increase and smiled apologetically. “I’ll go attend to this,” he informed us, and Esme pointed him in the direction of the laundry room.

With a quick kiss for Bella, he left us again, and Bella settled herself on the floor. Noticing how dirty her feet were from sprinting into the forest mid-pedicure, I offered her the foot spa to soak them in.

“Better?” I asked with a sympathetic smile.

“Much.” She sighed. “I’m sorry about before.”

“It’s perfectly alright, dear,” Esme reassured her, patting her knee gently. “The only problem now is how we are supposed to gossip about those men of ours when one of them is in the house.” She grinned to let Bella know she was joking.

 

* * *

 

 

I tried to make myself scarce while still being able to watch the upcoming encounter by looking busy at the dining table making jewelry.

“Bella? Jasper? Can I talk to you?” Edward looked incredibly nervous, gripping Christine’s hand tightly for comfort.

Jasper looked over at his mate, and after some thought, she nodded slowly. They all sat on the couches, each couple facing the other across the coffee table.

Edward took a deep breath. “I should have told you this sooner, but it didn’t seem like something to say over the phone. I need you to know how sorry I am for how I acted when you were human.”

He buried his head in his mate’s shoulder. “Shh, sweetie. You can do this.”

Ever so slowly, he looked at Bella and Jasper again. “I know that words can’t make up for trying to kill you, Bella, but they’re all I have. And I have to admit that even after you were changed, the reason I never came with the others to visit was that I was still angry.”

Bella looked at him in confusion. “Angry? Why?”

Jasper wrapped his arm around her shoulders as if he could protect her from what he suspected was coming.

Edward sighed and didn’t say anything until Christine squeezed his hand. “I was angry with Jasper because he got to taste your blood and not me. I know, logically, it’s ridiculous. I mean, there’s no way I would have stopped to let you change if I had started, but…”

“I think that’s enough about that,” Jasper growled.

“Sorry,” Edward said, his head down, contrition pouring off him.

Bella frowned and looked at Jasper. It was as if they were having a silent conversation. After a nod from her mate, Bella maneuvered around the coffee table to crouch in front of Edward. She rested her hands on his knees.

“It’s truly fine, Edward. I know what it’s like to have no control over your actions. I guess that wildness I felt as a newborn is a bit how you felt when you were around me. None of us are perfect, and that is something we all need to accept. As long as we crave blood, it will always be our weakness. You weren’t to blame, Edward. And I don’t blame you.”

With a look of shock on his face, he looked into her coppery eyes. “Thank you.”

“I’ve had over tea decade to think about this,” she continued, “and I have come to believe that this was the best path for us. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have been transformed as early as I was, sure. But without you, Jasper and I wouldn’t have gotten as close as we did. We learned so much about each other as we were fleeing. And who knows if we would have experienced anything like that if we had still been in Forks? How would we have coped if I was living with my father for years while we just ‘dated?’ It would have been torture to be apart so much. So, in a way, I should be thanking you. Because you made us who we are today, and you solidified our relationship to what it is today.”

“You’re—you’re welcome?” He didn’t seem to know if that was the correct thing to reply to her proclamation. “You really don’t blame me?”

“I don’t,” Bella confirmed, squeezing his knee to support her statement.

“I still blame you,” Jasper grumbled.

“Jasper!” Bella admonished. “Don’t be like that!”

“What?” He threw his hands up in defense. “I had to watch him try to kill you not once, but _three_ times. You might have lost the details of what happened during your change, but to me they’re still crystal clear. Nobody should be able to attack you and get off scot free.”

Bella retreated back to Jasper’s side, holding down his hands and looking into his face carefully. She was murmuring something so softly I couldn’t make it out, and he seemed to calm down.

From the other side of the coffee table, a small voice came out timidly. “If it helps, Jasper, he didn’t get off scot free like you say.”

“Christine—” Edward tried to interrupt.

“No, it’s okay,” she whispered back to him before raising her voice back to its normal level. “If you think what Edward did doesn’t haunt him every day then you don’t know him very well. Of course he’s traumatized by what happened. He’s working through it. And gaining Bella’s forgiveness is a positive step toward accepting himself again. We’re working hard here. Jasper, if you can’t forgive him, I understand, but know that he’s not the callus killer you portray him as in your head.”

“Thank you, love,” Edward whispered with a kiss to her cheek.

Bella looked up at Jasper pleadingly. “It’s been twelve years,” she said softly. “It’s over. You need to remember that. I’m safe and he’s not going to hurt me anymore. I know you’ve been carrying this with you for a long time, but it’s okay to let it go.”

“Feel it, Jasper,” Edward implored.

The two locked eyes as Jasper felt Edward’s emotions for endless seconds. Finally, Jasper stood up and stepped toward him.

“Brother,” he said, and the girls looked at each other in shock as the two embraced in a manly one-armed hug.

“Thank you,” Edward whispered, his voice filled with emotion.

“I may forgive,” Jasper warned him. “But I never forget.”

 

* * *

 

 

The family was all watching a movie. Well, most of them were. I could tell two of the couples weren’t paying any attention to the screen, only to their mates. Any other day, I would have felt jealous, but today was different. I watched them from where I leaned against the doorway with a smile on my face.

“I’m going to be gone for the weekend,” I informed them. “Maybe a bit longer. I’m going shopping in Halifax.”

Most of the people in the room just nodded absently. Only Esme and Christine really looked at me.

“Shopping?” Esme queried, looking up at me over Carlisle’s shoulder. “I could…”

“No,” I interrupted. “I can’t buy your Christmas presents if you’re there, can I?” I smirked at her in an effort to make her back off. I really couldn’t have anyone insisting on coming with me today. “Next time we’ll go together.”

“Have fun,” Carlisle called to me from his spot on the love seat. “You have your cell phone with you?”

“Of course.”

I sat in my car for a minute looking up at the house. When I returned, everything would be different. Well, maybe the house wouldn’t be different, but all going well, _I_ would be different.

I had timed my departure so that I would get to the ferry right on time; I couldn’t imagine how nervous and impotent I would have felt just waiting around in the terminal. The journey was slow and excruciating. The weather was overcast and the seas were rough, making the sailing even worse for the human passengers. 

As I parked my car near the city hall in Halifax, I couldn’t help the excitement which flooded me. I stood at the edge of the square and took in the scene before me. This was it.

I took a deep breath in and let the wintery air fill me with a sense of peace.

I am aware, more than most, how fragile our destinies are. Just the slightest change can alter the future of the whole universe. Some of these changes seem to be for the better, and some for the worse. All our destinies were changed when Bella walked into our lives, and though I lost Jasper because of it, I can’t help but be glad.

I knew that I was going to be happy. The second Bella was changed, my future became bright once more. And the reason for that was sitting on the other side of the Grand Parade right now, flaring his nostrils as he sensed another vampire in the area.

Once he singled me out in the crowd, he watched with trepidation as I moved toward him with purpose. I sat on the bench next to him and placed my hand so it barely touched him.

There it was—the feeling going through my body at his touch confirmed what I had seen in my vision.

“Hi, I’m Alice.”

He looked between our hands—where I was sure he felt the same feeling I did—and my face several times.

He seemed to choose his words carefully. “Pleasure to meet you, Alice. I’m Daniel.”

 


End file.
